Engineering surface epitopes to improve protein crystallization

ABSTRACT

The invention provides for methods and systems for engineering target proteins, based on protein sequence characteristics that influence the likelihood of obtaining a crystal suitable for X-ray structure solution, to improve protein crystallization, as well as related material.

This application is a continuation-in-part of International Application No. PCT/US2011/33135, filed Apr. 19, 2011, which claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/325,723, filed Apr. 19, 2010, U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/432,901, filed Jan. 14, 2011, the contents of each of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties.

GOVERNMENT INTERESTS

The work described herein was supported in whole, or in part, by National Institute of Health Grant Nos. GM074958, GM072867, GM62413 and GM75026. Thus, the United States Government has certain rights to the invention.

This patent disclosure contains material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves any and all copyright rights.

All patents, patent applications and publications cited herein are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety. The disclosures of these publications in their entireties are hereby incorporated by reference into this application in order to more fully describe the state of the art as known to those skilled therein as of the date of the invention described herein.

Sequence Listing

The instant application contains a Sequence Listing which has been submitted in ASCII format via EFS-Web and is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. Said ASCII copy, created on Jan. 10, 2013, is named 192473US.txt and is 1,388,275 bytes in size.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Current understanding of biology makes great use of atomic level protein structures, but the generation of these structures, e.g., by X-ray crystallography, is both expensive and uncertain. A significant bottleneck in the process is the generation of high quality crystals for X-ray diffraction. Much effort has gone to developing crystallization screens, and to creating high-throughput methods for cloning and expressing proteins (see, e.g., Acton T. B. et al., Methods Enzymol. 2005, 394, 210-243). However, the mechanisms of crystallization—and the protein characteristics that impact it—remain largely unknown and poorly understood, with different methods of study yielding substantially different results.

The Surface Entropy Reduction (SER) methods, identify mutations that can potentially improve crystallization by using secondary structure prediction and sequence conservation to locate residues with high-entropy side chains in variable loop regions of the protein. Replacing one or more of these residues with a low-entropy amino acid, like alanine, has been predicted to improve crystallization by reducing the entropic penalty of inter-protein interface formation. Moreover, this approach focuses on making mutations in predicted loop regions of the protein's secondary structure.

The methods described herein differ from the SER methods by using the Protein Data Bank (PDB) as a data mine of information to improve predictions. By using a topological analysis of crystal structures in the PDB, this is a novel approach to identifying possible mutations to improve crystallization. The methods described herein are superior as information is culled for improving interface formation from interfaces already experimentally observed. Moreover, unlike the SER methods, the methods and systems described herein use whole epitope modifications, rather than single amino acid changes, thus increasing the success rate at which an inter-protein interface could be formed, since interfaces are usually comprised of a surface and not a single residue interaction.

The epitope modifications involve chemical changes of very diverse types, including hydrophobic-to-hydrophilic substitutions in equal measure to hydrophilic-to-hydrophobic mutations, whereas the single-residue mutations suggested by SER involves primarily hydrophilic-to-hydrophobic substitutions and almost always polarity-reducing mutations. Such mutations tend to impair solubility, which prevents effective protein purification and crystallization. The greater diversity in the kinds of chemical changes involved in epitope modification fundamentally frees crystallization engineering from the crippling correlation between crystallization-improving and solubility-impairing mutations. Epitope modifications frequently involve increasing the side-chain entropy, so they do not require entropy reduction at the level of individual amino acids, which is the foundation of the SER method.

Finally, SER methods avoid mutations for non-loop regions of the protein, missing out on many potential epitopes in α-helices, helix capping motifs, or beta hairpins. The epitope engineering method described herein includes all secondary structure elements, thus generating a larger computational list of possible epitope candidates.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention is based, in part, on the finding that replacement of certain epitopes in a protein with more desirable epitopes, some of which occur in non-loop regions of the protein, significantly improves crystallization properties of the protein for purposes of X-ray crystallographic studies.

It is understood that any of the embodiments described below can be combined in any desired way, and any embodiment or combination of embodiments can be applied to each of the aspects described below.

In one embodiment, the invention provides for a method of modifying a protein sequence for high-resolution X-ray crystallographic structure determination, the method comprising: (a) receiving a sequence of a protein of interest; (b) selecting, using a computer, an epitope from an epitope library that is expected to increase the propensity of the protein of interest to crystallize and that is consistent with sequence variations observed in homologous proteins; and (c) outputting information on which portion of the amino acid sequence of the protein of interest should be replaced with the selected epitope to generate a modified protein.

In another embodiment of the invention, the information is outputted in the form of an amino acid sequence of the modified protein or a portion thereof. In another embodiment of the invention, the information is outputted in the form of a list of mutations to be made in the amino acid sequence of the protein of interest to provide the amino acid sequence of the modified protein or a portion thereof. In some embodiments, the information is outputted in the order that is a function of its likelihood of improving crystallization of the target protein.

In some embodiments, the epitope library includes information describing over-representation of an epitope in the PDB database.

In another embodiment of the invention, the method further comprises predicting the secondary structure of the protein of interest and of its homolog. In another embodiment, the method further comprises identifying a homolog of the protein of interest and aligning the sequence of the protein of interest with the sequence of the homolog.

In one embodiment, the epitope is selected based on one or more of: over-representation P-value for overrepresentation of the epitope in the epitope library; fraction of occurrences of the epitope in the PDB database in crystal-packing contacts; frequency of occurrence of the epitope in crystal-packing interfaces in the PDB database; sequence diversity of proteins containing the epitope in crystal-packing interfaces in the PDB database; sequence diversity of partner epitopes in the PDB database; low frequency of non-water bridging ligands to the epitope in the PDB database; lack of increase in hydrophobicity of the modified protein by introducing the epitope; or predicted influence of the epitope on the solubility of the modified protein.

In another embodiment, the selected epitope is 1-6 amino acid in length. In yet another embodiment, the selected epitope is 2-15 amino acids in length. In still another embodiment, the selected epitope is 4-15 amino acids in length. In another embodiment, the selected epitope is 4-6 amino acids in length.

In a further embodiment, the epitope includes a polar amino acid. In another embodiment of the invention, the selected epitope is an epitope from Tables 5-38 (Table 5, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 118-216, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 6, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 217-315, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 7, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 316-414, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 8, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 415-513, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 9, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 514-612, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 10, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 613-711, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 11, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 712-810, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 12, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 811-909, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 13, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 910-1,008, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 14, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,009-1,107, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 15, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,108-1,206, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 16, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,207-1,305, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 17, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,306-1,404, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 18, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,405-1,503, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 19, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,504-1,602, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 20, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,603-1,701, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 21, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,702-1,800, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 22, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,801-1,899, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 23, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,900-1,998, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 24, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,999-2,097, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 25, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,098-2,196, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 26, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,197-2,295, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 27, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,296-2,394, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 28, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,395-2,493, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 29, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,494-2,592, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 30, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,593-2,691, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 31, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,692-2,790, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 32, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,791-2,889, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 33, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,890-2,988, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 34, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,989-3,087, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 35, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 3,088-3,186, respectively, in order of appearance). In another embodiment, the selected epitope is an epitope from Tables 2-3. In yet another embodiment, the selected epitope is an epitope from other tables generated using equivalent computational approaches to those described herein with obvious modification consistent with the concepts and principles described herein.

In another embodiment, the invention provides for the method where two or more steps are performed using a computer. In another embodiment, the method is implemented by a web-based server.

In a further embodiment, the invention provides for generating a nucleic acid sequence encoding a protein comprising the modified protein. The invention also provides for a method further comprising expressing the modified protein in a cell or in an in vitro expression system. In another embodiment, the method further comprises crystallizing the modified protein of interest.

In one aspect, the invention provides for a system for designing a modified protein for high-resolution X-ray crystallographic structure determination, the system comprising a computer having a processor and computer-readable program code for performing the method of modifying a protein sequence for high-resolution X-ray crystallographic structure determination, the method comprising: (a) receiving a sequence of a protein of interest; (b) selecting, using a computer, an epitope from an epitope library that is expected to increase the propensity of the protein of interest to crystallize and that is consistent with sequence variations observed in homologous proteins; and (c) outputting information on which portion of the amino acid sequence of the protein of interest should be replaced with the selected epitope to generate a modified protein.

The invention also provides for a method of using the system to obtain the amino acid sequence of the modified protein. The invention also provides for a method or a system further comprising generating a nucleic acid sequence encoding a protein comprising the modified protein. The invention also provides a method further comprising expressing the modified protein in a cell or in an in vitro expression system. In another embodiment, the invention provides for a method further comprising crystallizing the modified protein.

In another aspect, the invention provides for a computer readable medium containing a database of a plurality of epitopes from Tables 2-3 and 5-38 (Table 5, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 118-216, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 6, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 217-315, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 7, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 316-414, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 8, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 415-513, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 9, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 514-612, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 10, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 613-711, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 11, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 712-810, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 12, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 811-909, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 13, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 910-1,008, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 14, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,009-1,107, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 15, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,108-1,206, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 16, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,207-1,305, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 17, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,306-1,404, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 18, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,405-1,503, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 19, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,504-1,602, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 20, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,603-1,701, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 21, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,702-1,800, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 22, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,801-1,899, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 23, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,900-1,998, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 24, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,999-2,097, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 25, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,098-2,196, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 26, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,197-2,295, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 27, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,296-2,394, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 28, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,395-2,493, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 29, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,494-2,592, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 30, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,593-2,691, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 31, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,692-2,790, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 32, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,791-2,889, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 33, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,890-2,988, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 34, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,989-3,087, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 35, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 3,088-3,186, respectively, in order of appearance) or other tables generated using equivalent computational approaches to those described herein. In some embodiments, the computer readable medium contains a database of at least 100 epitopes from Tables 2-3 and 5-38 (Table 5, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 118-216, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 6, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 217-315, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 7, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 316-414, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 8, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 415-513, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 9, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 514-612, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 10, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 613-711, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 11, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 712-810, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 12, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 811-909, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 13, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 910-1,008, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 14, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,009-1,107, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 15, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,108-1,206, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 16, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,207-1,305, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 17, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,306-1,404, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 18, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,405-1,503, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 19, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,504-1,602, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 20, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,603-1,701, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 21, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,702-1,800, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 22, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,801-1,899, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 23, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,900-1,998, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 24, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,999-2,097, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 25, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,098-2,196, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 26, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,197-2,295, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 27, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,296-2,394, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 28, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,395-2,493, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 29, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,494-2,592, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 30, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,593-2,691, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 31, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,692-2,790, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 32, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,791-2,889, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 33, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,890-2,988, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 34, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,989-3,087, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 35, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 3,088-3,186, respectively, in order of appearance). In yet another aspect, the invention provides for a computer readable medium containing information describing over-representation of a plurality of epitopes in the PDB database. In some embodiments, the computer readable medium is non-transitory.

In yet another aspect, the invention provides for a recombinant protein in which a portion of its amino acid sequence has been replaced by an epitope from Tables 2-3 and 5-36 (Table 5, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 118-216, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 6, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 217-315, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 7, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 316-414, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 8, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 415-513, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 9, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 514-612, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 10, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 613-711, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 11, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 712-810, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 12, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 811-909, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 13, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 910-1,008, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 14, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,009-1,107, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 15, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,108-1,206, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 16, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,207-1,305, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 17, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,306-1,404, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 18, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,405-1,503, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 19, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,504-1,602, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 20, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,603-1,701, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 21, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,702-1,800, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 22, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,801-1,899, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 23, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,900-1,998, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 24, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,999-2,097, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 25, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,098-2,196, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 26, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,197-2,295, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 27, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,296-2,394, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 28, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,395-2,493, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 29, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,494-2,592, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 30, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,593-2,691, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 31, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,692-2,790, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 32, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,791-2,889, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 33, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,890-2,988, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 34, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,989-3,087, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 35, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 3,088-3,186, respectively, in order of appearance) or from other tables generated using equivalent computational approaches to those described herein. In still another aspect, the invention provides for a crystal of the protein of interest which is obtained using the methods of the invention. In one embodiment, the crystal is suitable for high-resolution X-ray crystallographic studies.

In one embodiment, the expression system is an in vitro expression system. In another embodiment, the in vitro expression system is a cell-free transcription/translation system. In still another embodiment, the expression system is an in vivo expression system. In yet another embodiment, the in vivo expression system is a bacterial expression system or a eukaryotic expression system. In another embodiment, the in vivo expression system is an Escherichia coli cell. In still another embodiment, the in vivo expression system is a mammalian cell.

In one embodiment, the protein of interest is a human polypeptide, or a fragment thereof. In another embodiment, the protein of interest is a viral polypeptide, or a fragment thereof. In another embodiment, the protein of interest is an antibody, an antibody fragment, an antibody derivative, a diabody, a tribody, a tetrabody, an antibody dimer, an antibody trimer or a minibody. In another embodiment, the protein of interest is a target of pharmaceutical compound or a receptor. In still another embodiment, the antibody fragment is a Fab fragment, a Fab′ fragment, a F(ab)₂ fragment, a Fd fragment, a Fv fragment, or a ScFv fragment. In yet another embodiment, the protein of interest is a cytokine, an inflammatory molecule, a growth factor, a cytokine receptor, an inflammatory molecule receptor, a growth factor receptor, an oncogene product, or any fragment thereof. In another yet another embodiment, the protein of interest is a fusion polypeptide. In one aspect, the invention described herein relates to a protein of interest produced by the methods described herein. In one aspect, the invention described herein relates to a pharmaceutical composition comprising the protein of interest produced by the methods described herein. In one aspect, the invention described herein relates to an immunogenic composition comprising the protein of interest produced by the methods described herein.

In one aspect, the invention provides for the use of packing epitopes from previously determined X-ray crystal structures in engineering of proteins with improved crystallization properties.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

FIG. 1 is a diagram of epitope library generation according to one embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 2 shows characteristics of oligomeric vs. crystal packing interfaces. Distributions are shown for three levels of interaction classification: half-interfaces (FIG. 2A, FIG. 2B, and FIG. 2C), full binary interaction epitopes (FIG. 2D, FIG. 2E, and FIG. 2F), and elementary binary interaction epitopes (FIG. 2G, FIG. 2H, and FIG. 2I). Distributions show the number of counts of the relevant element binned by buried surface area (FIG. 2A, FIG. 2D, and FIG. 2G), number of participating residues (FIG. 2B, FIG. 2E, and FIG. 2H), and spread—the number of residues, interacting or not, spanned by the element (FIG. 2C, FIG. 2F, and FIG. 2I). Within each graph, separate distributions are shown for all elements, elements which appear in the BioMT database of inferred biological oligomers, elements which do not appear in BioMT but are within proper interfaces, and elements which do not appear in BioMT and are not proper interfaces. All counts are redundancy-culled.

FIG. 3 is a graphical representation of the analytical scheme for crystal-packing analysis. Definitions of elements in the packing interface are given next to schematic depictions of each element. Bold lines represent protein chains, grey lines inter-atomic contacts ≦4 Å, and numbered circles show representative elements.

FIG. 4 shows polymorphism in crystal packing interactions. FIG. 4A: Color-ramped 2-dimensional histogram for 3,185,367 pairs of interfaces from crystal structures of proteins with ≧98% sequence identity showing the percentage of pairwise residue interactions conserved versus the PSS (packing similarity score, defined as the Frobenius product of the contact or interaction matrices). FIG. 4B: Histogram of PSSs for these interfaces calculated either without B-factor weighting (n=0) or with high B-factor residues down-weighted (n=3) as described in the text. FIG. 4C: Histogram of unweighted PSSs (packing similarity score, defined as the Frobenius product of the contact or interaction matrices) for non-proper interfaces formed by proteins with different levels of sequence identity.

FIG. 5 is a graphical representation of summary statistics on all interfaces in 39,208 protein crystal structures in the PDB. (A) Histograms showing distributions of the fraction of residues participating in inter-protein packing contacts. (B) Histograms showing number of interfaces per crystal. (C) Cumulative distribution graph showing fraction of interfaces equal to or smaller in size than the number indicated on the abscissa. In this graph, residues from the two interacting molecules are counted separately. The curve labeled “Largest” shows data for the single largest non-proper interface in each crystal. (D) Cumulative size and range distributions for hierarchically defined packing elements (counting residues from one of the interacting molecules).

FIG. 6 shows a schematic overview of statistical methods and epitope-engineering software.

FIG. 7 shows a bar graph of the fraction of residues in loops, sheets, and alpha helices that interact in EBIEs. Fractions are shown for all residues, only residues that are surface-exposed or buried, as calculated by DSSP, or all residues interacting in BioMT interfaces only.

FIG. 8 illustrates improvement of crystallization of an integral membrane protein via epitope engineering. (A) Schematic summary of the results from a representative initial crystallization screen at 20° C. (B) Micrograph of one well of excellent lead crystals obtained for the MD-to-AG mutant protein in this screen. (C) The same well from a wild-type screen conducted in parallel.

FIG. 9 shows epitope-engineering of proteins giving intractable crystals. FIG. 9 discloses SEQ ID NOS 89-90, 415, 50, 96-97, 50, 99, 105, 107-108, 108, 110, 112-113, and 115-117, respectively, in order of appearance.

FIG. 10 shows the results from preliminary epitope-engineering experiments. 36 single epitope mutations were designed in nine proteins. Subsequently, pairs or triplets of these were combined to make five proteins bearing multiple epitope mutations. These 41 protein variants harboring single and multiple epitope mutations were purified and screened for crystallization using the NESG pipeline. FIG. 10A: Differences in soluble yield in E. coli compared to corresponding WT protein, as scored on a standard 0-5 scale³³. FIG. 10B: Ratio of crystallization stock concentrations compared to WT protein. FIG. 10C: Difference in Thermofluor T_(m) for 30 single mutants. FIG. 10D: Change in number of crystallization hits compared to WT four weeks after set up in the 1536-well robotic screen at the Hauptman-Woodward Institute. FIG. 10E: Number of unique crystallization conditions in this screen in which the epitope mutant gave a hit while the WT did not. FIG. 10F: Crystal-packing contact involving the mutated F39R residue in the 1.8 Å crystal structure of NESG target BhR182. FIG. 10F discloses “TxxxxR” as SEQ ID NO: 89.

FIG. 11 A-I shows redundancy-adjusted number of counts for Interface, FBIE, and EBIE.

FIG. 12 shows a solubility comparison of VCR193 single mutants.

FIG. 13 shows a solubility comparison of VCR193 multi mutants.

FIG. 14 shows that epitope mutations open up a new dimension in exploration of crystallization space. The first number in each diagonal cell shows the total number of conditions in which crystals (“hits”) were observed for each protein variant. The numbers in parentheses in these cells indicate the number of unique chemical conditions giving hits for that variant compared to, first, the WT protein and, second, all other mutant variants evaluated. The off-diagonal cells show the number of hit conditions for the variants on the row and the column that were not shared with one another (i.e., first for the protein on the row and second for the one on the column).

FIG. 15 shows the results of an epitope-engineering study on four “no hits” proteins, i.e., proteins that yielded no crystallization hits in two independent screens of the protein with wild type sequence. The results show that crystal structures were solved for two of these four proteins using 4-5 single eptitope mutations per protein. FIG. 15 discloses SEQ ID NOS 5,228-5,231, respectively, in order of appearance.

FIG. 16 shows the structure of epitope-engineered protein LpYceA (LgR82). The eptitope mutation that produced this structure participates directly in a crystal-packing interaction.

FIG. 17 shows “surface-shaping” to calibrate expectations for participation in crystal-packing interactions.

FIG. 18 shows that Arg in alpha-helices is the most strongly overrepresented amino-acid/secondary-structure class in interfaces in the PDB.

FIG. 19 shows polar amino acids predominate those most strongly overrepresented in interfaces after area-normalization.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The issued patents, applications, and other publications that are cited herein are hereby incorporated by reference to the same extent as if each was specifically and individually indicated to be incorporated by reference.

Research on the crystallization of proteins substantially predated efforts to determine their atomic structures using diffraction methods. Despite the historical importance of avidly crystallizing proteins, most proteins do not produce high-quality crystals. Even for proteins with the most promising sequence properties, at most 1/3 yield crystal structures from a single construct. These include the development of efficacious chemical screens that mimic historically successful crystallization conditions, sophisticated robots that enable more crystallization conditions to be screened with less protein and effort, and numerous innovations that improve crystallization in some cases. However, as long as most proteins cannot be crystallized, crystallization fundamentally remains a hit-or-miss proposition.

Existing methods for improving protein crystallization work with limited efficiency. Consistent with this premise, changes in primary sequence have been demonstrated to alter substantially the crystallization properties of many proteins. Disordered backbone segments can be identified using elegant hydrogen-deuterium exchange mass spectrometry methods, and constructs with such segments excised have shown improved crystallization properties. Progressive truncation of the N- and C-termini of the protein can also yield crystallizable constructs of proteins that initially failed to crystallize. However, many nested truncation constructs generally need to be screened, sometimes with termini differing by as little as two amino acids; even after extensive effort, this procedure still frequently fails to yield a soluble protein construct producing high-quality crystals. The Surface Entropy Reduction (SER) method uses site-directed mutagenesis to replace high-entropy side chains on the surface of the protein (generally lys, glu, and gln) with lower entropy side chains (generally ala). In most cases in which a substantial improvement in crystallization has been obtained by this method, a pair of mutations was introduced at adjacent sites. While some successes have been obtained, most such mutations reduce the solubility of the protein, frequently so severely that it prevents effective protein purification.

Analyses of large-scale experimental studies show that the surface properties of proteins, and particularly the entropy of the exposed side chains, are a major determinant of protein crystallization propensity⁴. Such studies demonstrated that overall thermodynamic stability is not a major determinant of protein crystallization propensity. They also identified a number of primary sequence properties that correlate with crystallization success, including the fractional content of several individual amino acids (i.e., gly, ala, and phe). Equivalent methods have been used to assess correlations between protein sequence properties and expression/solubility results (Price et al., 2011, Microbial Informatics and Experimentation, 1:6, doi:10.1186/2042-5783-1-6). These studies demonstrated that the individual amino acids that positively correlate with crystallization success negatively correlate with protein solubility, and vice versa. This effect severely limits the efficacy of single amino acid substitutions in improving protein crystallization because crystallization probability is low unless starting with a monodisperse soluble protein preparation. Therefore, more sophisticated approaches than single amino-acid substitutions are needed for efficient engineering of improved protein crystallization.

The methods described herein related to methods for improving protein crystallization by the introduction of complex sequence epitopes that mediate high-quality packing contacts in crystal structures deposited into the Protein Data Bank (PDB).

In certain aspects, the invention relates to the finding that many naturally occurring proteins have excellent solubility properties and also crystallize very well. In certain aspects, the invention relates to the finding specific protein surface epitopes that can mediate strong interprotein interactions under the conditions that drive protein crystallization without compromising solubility in the dilute aqueous buffers used for purification. Described herein are such epitopes as well as methods for finding such epitopes and using them to engineer crystallization of otherwise crystallization-resistant proteins. In certain aspects, the invention described herein relates to linear sequence epitopes contributing to interface formation in existing protein crystal structures. The methods described herein can be used to rank the packing quality and potential of these epitopes based on statistical analyses of epitope prevalence and properties combined with molecular-mechanics analyses of interfacial and intramolecular packing energies. Such rankings can be used to prioritize epitopes for systematic experimental evaluation of their potential to improve the crystallization properties of otherwise crystallization-resistant proteins.

As used herein, the recitation of a numerical range for a variable is intended to convey that the invention may be practiced with the variable equal to any of the values within that range. Thus, for a variable that is inherently discrete, the variable can be equal to any integer value within the numerical range, including the end-points of the range. Similarly, for a variable that is inherently continuous, the variable can be equal to any real value within the numerical range, including the end-points of the range. As an example, and without limitation, a variable which is described as having values between 0 and 2 can take the values 0, 1 or 2 if the variable is inherently discrete, and can take the values 0.0, 0.1, 0.01, 0.001, or any other real values ≧0 and ≦2 if the variable is inherently continuous.

As used herein, unless specifically indicated otherwise, the word “or” is used in the inclusive sense of “and/or” and not the exclusive sense of “either/or.”

The singular forms “a,” “an,” and “the” include plural references unless the content clearly dictates otherwise. Thus, for example, reference to “an epitope” includes a plurality of such epitopes.

An “epitope,” as used herein, is as a specific sequence of amino acids with a specific secondary-structure pattern that makes intermolecular packing contacts. The term “epitope” includes a “sub-epitope” which is also called an “epitope subsequence” herein. In some embodiments, the term “epitopes” encompasses Elementary Binary Interaction Epitopes (EBIEs).

An “epitope subsequence” or a “sub-epitope”, as used herein, is a sequence within an “epitope”, i.e., within a specific pattern of amino acids with a specific secondary-structure pattern that makes intermolecular packing contacts. For example, the ExxxR (SEQ ID NO: 50)/HHHHH epitope subsequence contains Glu and Arg making packing contacts at positions four residues apart in a continuous segment of α-helix.

The term “polar amino acid” includes serine (Ser), threonine (Thr), cysteine (Cys), asparagine (Asn), glutamine (Gln), histidine (His), lysine (Lys), arginine (Arg), aspartic acid (Asp), and glutamic acid (Glu).

The term “hydrophobic amino acid” includes glycine (Gly), alanine (Ala), valine (Val), leucine (Leu), isoleucine (Ile), proline (Pro), phenylalanine (Phe), methionine (Met), tryptophan (Trp), and tyrosine (Tyr).

As used herein, EBIE(s) refers to Elementary Binary Interaction Epitope(s), CBIE refers to Continuous Binary Interaction Epitopes(s), and FBIE(s) refers to Full Binary Interaction Epitope(s).

In certain aspects, the methods described herein are based on a new approach to engineering improved protein crystallization based on introduction of historically successful crystallization epitopes and sub-epitopes into crystallization-resistant proteins. In certain aspects, the methods described herein relate to the results of data mining high-throughput experimental studies. This analysis showed that crystallization propensity is controlled primarily by the prevalence of low-entropy surface epitopes capable of mediating high-quality crystal-packing interactions. The PDB contains an archive of such epitopes in deposited crystal structures; however, other databases can be used according to the methods described herein. Computational methods can be used in connection with the methods described herein to identify and analyze all crystal-packing epitopes in the PDB. In certain aspects, the invention relates to metrics useful for ranking the efficacy of packing epitopes in order to identify those with a high probability of forming energetically favorable interactions under the low water-activity conditions used to drive crystallization. For example, such metric can include, but are not limited to statistical over-representation of each epitope in packing interactions with diverse partner sequences in the PDB. However, other ranking strategies are suitable for use with the methods described herein, including, but not limited to, using molecular mechanics calculations to estimate inter-molecular packing energy. In certain aspects, the methods described herein can be used to engineer the surface of a protein to be enriched in epitopes with favorable packing potential that will promote formation of a well-ordered 3-dimensional lattice. When the packing interfaces in some regular lattice have favorable free energy, the formation of that lattice is favored thermodynamically due to the consistent gain in energy for every added molecule. Thus, in certain aspects the invention described herein relates to the prevalence of surface epitopes with high propensity to form such favorable interactions, which will influence whether a protein can find a lattice structure with favorable intermolecular interactions or whether it precipitates amorphously with heterogeneous interactions. In certain aspects, the invention relates to the finding that increasing the prevalence of surface epitopes with favorable packing potential increases high quality crystallization.

Generation of a Library of Epitopes that are Expected to Improve Crystallization Properties of a Target Protein

In some embodiments, a database is generated containing a library of all elementary, continuous, or full binary interaction epitopes (EBIEs, CBIEs, and FBIEs) in the PDB that span at most two successive regular secondary structural elements and flanking loops (as identified by the DSSP algorithm (Kabsch and Sander, Dictionary of protein secondary structure: pattern recognition of hydrogen-bonded and geometrical features. Biopolymers 22 (12), 2577-637 (1983)).

An interface is defined as all residues making atomic contacts (≦4 Å) between two protein molecules related by a single rotation-translation operation in the real-space crystal lattice. The interface is decomposed into features called Elementary Binary Interaction Epitopes (EBIEs). These comprise a connected set of residues that are covalently bonded or make van der Waals interactions to one other in one molecule and that also contact a similarly connected set of residues in the other molecule forming the interface. EBIEs can be the foundation of this analysis because these features and their constituent sub-features represent potentially engineerable sequence motifs. One or more EBIEs that are connected to one another by covalent bonds or van der Waals interactions within a molecule form a Continuous Binary Interaction Epitope (CBIE). One or more CBIEs in one molecule that are connected to one another indirectly by a chain of contacts across a single interface form a Full Binary Interaction Epitope (FBIE). The set of one or more FBIEs that all mediate contacts between the same two molecules in the real-space lattice form a complete interface.

The sequence of both contacting and non-contacting residues is stored along with the standard DSSP-encoding of the secondary structure at each position in the protein structure in which the epitope was observed to mediate a crystal-packing interaction. All metrics possibly related to the crystal-packing potential of the epitope are recorded, including B-factor distribution parameters, statistical enrichment scores relative to all interfaces in the PDB, as well as conservation in multiple crystals from homologous proteins, and crystallization propensity and solubility scores based on the sequence composition of the epitope. The database includes the identity of all EBIE pairs making contact with each other as well as a breakdown of the composition of all FBIEs and CBIEs in terms of their constituent EBIEs. This versatile resource for analyzing and engineering crystallization epitopes is available on the crystallization engineering web-server.

One embodiment of the invention which demonstrates how an epitope library can be generated is schematized in FIG. 1. A hierarchical analytical scheme has been developed to identify contiguous epitopes potentially useful for protein engineering, and has been used to analyze all inter-protein packing interactions in crystal structures in the PDB. The hierarchical scheme can be very useful for this analysis.

The PDB contain some structures that have errors which creates inaccuracies in the characterization of these structures. It also contains many structures that are partially or completely redundant that create problems in the eventual identification of sequence motifs that are over-represented in crystal-packing interactions. These concerns can be addressed by computational flagging and down-weighting mechanisms, respectively.

Biological and non-biological protein oligomers can be addressed as follows. To identify biological oligomers, the BioMT database (Krissinel and Henrick, Inference of macromolecular assemblies from crystalline state. J. Mol. Biol. 372, 774-797), which attempts to categorize all previously described biological interfaces in the PDB, can be used. Interfaces so identified are flagged as “BioMT” interfaces. Recognizing that some oligomeric interfaces may not be appropriately categorized by BioMT, the set of “proper” interfaces which could be either biological or crystallographic are identified.

Interfaces are designated as “proper” if they form part of a regular oligomer with proper rotational symmetry (i.e., n protein molecules in the real-space lattice each related to the next by a 360°/n rotation±5°, with n being any integer from 2-12) and “non-proper” if they do not. Proper interfaces could potentially be part of a stable physiological oligomer while non-proper interfaces cannot. After these two categorization steps, four sets of interfaces exist: the set of all interfaces; the set of biological interfaces identified by BioMT; the set of proper interfaces not identified as biological interfaces by BioMT, but which could potentially be either biological or crystallographic; and the set of interfaces which are not identified by BioMT and which are not proper, as defined above. The most conservative approach to isolating non-physiological crystal-packing interactions is to focus exclusively on non-proper interfaces in order to exclude any complex that is potentially a physiological oligomer. Nonetheless, epitopes that contribute to stabilizing physiological oligomers may still be useful for engineering purposes, and epitopes that promote formation of a regular oligomer would be particularly useful because stable oligomerization strongly promotes crystallization (Price et al., Understanding the physical properties that control protein crystallization by analysis of large-scale experimental data. Nat Biotechnol 27 (1), 51-7 (2009)).

FIG. 2 illustrates characteristics of oligomeric vs. crystal-packing interfaces. Distributions are shown for three levels of interaction classification: half-interfaces (A, B, and C), full binary interaction epitopes (D, E, and F), and elementary binary interaction epitopes (G, H, and I). Distributions show the number of counts of the relevant element binned by buried surface area (A, D, and G), number of participating residues (B, E, and H), and spread—the number of residues, interacting or not, spanned by the element (C, F, and I). Within each graph, separate distributions are shown for all elements, elements which appear in the BioMT database of biological oligomers, elements which do not appear in BioMT but are within proper interfaces (as defined above), and elements which do not appear in BioMT and are not proper interfaces. All counts are redundancy-culled as described below. PSS is the Packing Similarity Score, and can be calculated as discussed further below.

One approach to redundancy reduction of epitope counts is described herein. Starting with all interfaces (FIG. 3) found in the analyzed set of 39,208 crystal structures, select all non-pathological protein crystals based on exclusion of those with pathologically close intermolecular packing.

Cull-1: Select non-redundant crystals: PSS<0.5 for any pair of crystals (comparing all chains).

Cull-2: Select non-BioMT interfaces, i.e., not related by PDB-designated BioMT transformation.

Cull-3: Select non-redundant interfaces within each crystal, i.e., with PSS<0.5 for any pair of interfaces within each crystal.

Cull-3′: Select non-redundant interfaces between crystals, i.e., with PSS<0.5 for any pair of interfaces included in the analyses, even those in different crystals.

Count unique chain sequences contributing to Cull-3 at the 25% identity level (i.e., the number of protein chains without any pair having greater than or equal to 25% identity to one another).

Even when all biological and oligomeric interfaces are removed from the dataset, significant redundancy remains within the PDB. Many proteins in the PDB have had multiple crystal structures deposited, which may have very similar if not identical packing interactions (e.g., multiple mutations at a non-interacting active site) but which can also have completely separate packing interactions (e.g., crystallization under different conditions into a different crystal form). Simply culling identical or homologous proteins would remove all redundancy but would also eliminate significant information from the second situation, where the same protein forms crystals with different packing interactions.

To implement a redundancy down-weighting, the Packing Similarity Score (PSS) has been developed to evaluate the similarity between inter-protein interfaces, full chain interactions, and crystals. PSS can be calculated in the following way: Interactions matrices are generated for each interface, with rows representing residues in one chain and columns representing residues in the other chain. Cells in the matrix include the number of inter-atomic contacts between the two residues (including contacts mediated by a single solvent molecule) and the B-factor-derived weight associated with that contact. The PSS between two interfaces is defined as the normalized Frobenius product (a matrix dot-product) of the two interaction matrices, which are aligned to one another based on standard methods for aligning homologous protein sequences, as described below. The PSS takes values in the range between 0 and 1. This value contains significant information about the overall similarity of two interfaces, and is sensitive to small changes (FIG. 4A). To calculate the PSS for two chains or two crystals, the process is essentially repeated on a larger scale. Each interface in one chain is matched with an interface in the second chain with which it has the highest PSS. Interfaces are ordered in this way, and the individual interaction matrices are then inscribed into the larger chain/chain or crystal/crystal interaction matrix. The Frobenius product of this matrix is then taken. However, since best-matches are not necessarily reciprocal, the best-interface-matching process is repeated in reverse to ensure reciprocity of the chain or crystal PSS. The Frobenius products of the two matrices are added and then normalized to give the chain or crystal PSS.

Each interface in a crystal structure is quantitatively described by a contact matrix C containing the corresponding C_(u) values (i.e., with its rows and columns indexed by the residue numbers in the two interaction proteins). To evaluate the similarity in inter-protein interfaces formed by homologous proteins, their sequences are aligned using CLUSTAL-W (Higgins et al., Using CLUSTAL for multiple sequence alignments. Methods in Enzymology 266, 383-402 (1996)) after transitively grouping together all proteins sharing at least 25% sequence identity. This procedure effectively aligns both the columns and rows in the contact matrices for interfaces formed by the homologous proteins. The Packing Similarity Score (PSS) between the interfaces is then calculated as the Frobenius (matrix-direct) product between the respective contact matrices. This procedure is mathematically equivalent to calculating a dot-product between vectors filled with the contact count between corresponding residue pairs in homologous interfaces. PSS values range from 1.0, if the number of contacts between each interfacial residue pair is identical, to 0.0, if no pair-wise contacts are preserved.

FIG. 5 shows statistics from application of the analytical scheme shown in FIG. 3 to all crystal structures in the PDB (39,208 entries). The average number of total, proper, and non-proper interfaces per protein molecular are 6.9, 1.8, and 5.1, respectively (FIG. 5A). While a minimum of four interfaces is required for a single molecule to form a 3-dimensional lattice, fewer are possible when multiple molecules are present in the crystallographic asymmetric unit. Proteins generally contain only a small number of interfaces beyond the minimum required for lattice formation, indicating that most interfaces contribute to structural stabilization of the lattice. On average, 50% of surface-exposed residues and 36% of all residues participate in inter-protein packing interactions (FIG. 5B). While interfaces range widely in size, 36% of all interfaces and 42% of non-proper interfaces contain 10 or fewer residues counting contributions from both sides of the interface (˜5 from each participating molecule) (FIG. 5C). The small size of the average interface is encouraging relative to the feasibility of engineering interface formation. Half of all interfaces are under eight residues in size, and a quarter (8678 total in the dataset analyzed herein) are under eight residues in range within the polypeptide chain (separation). The cumulative size/range distributions for all interfaces, CBIEs, and EBIEs (FIG. 5D) shows that most interfaces are topologically simple and local in the primary sequence, even though some are complex. It is noteworthy that FBIEs contain on average fewer than two EBIEs and that most EBIEs are less than 4 residues in size and 10 residues in range. These small EBIEs represent prime candidates for engineering improved crystallization of crystallization-resistant proteins.

The epitope library was used to count all EBIEs that appear in the PDB, and to determine which sequences are statistically over-represented in EBIEs given their background frequency in non-interacting sequences in the PDB. Before specific amino acid sequences were considered, the secondary structure patterns that appeared most frequently in EBIEs were examined. Some secondary structure patterns appeared much more frequently than others; these are summarized in Table 1.

TABLE 1 SECONDARY STRUCTURE MOTIFS IN EBIEs^(a) Null Secondary Fraction Fraction Probability Probability Size Structure in PDB in EBIEs in EBIE in EBIE Z Score P-value* 1 C 0.41 0.510 0.357 0.33 85.2 0 1 H 0.36 0.332 0.321 0.33 −33.8 3.21E−251 1 E 0.23 0.159 0.290 0.33 −91.3 0 2 CC 0.32 0.481 0.171 0.15 101.5 0 2 HC 0.036 0.048 0.168 0.15 29.1 1.51E−186 2 CH 0.035 0.042 0.154 0.15 9.5 6.95E−22 2 EC 0.049 0.042 0.151 0.15 4.8 7.29E−07 2 CE 0.050 0.046 0.144 0.15 −4.2 1.65E−05 2 HE 0.0016 0.00061 0.118 0.15 −5.5 2.70E−08 2 EH 0.0029 0.0012 0.091 0.15 −16.9 5.60E−64 2 EE 0.184 0.106 0.134 0.15 −31.3 1.84E−215 2 HH 0.320 0.232 0.116 0.15 −113.7 0 3 HCC 0.031 0.051 0.096 0.076 35.8 2.51E−280 3 CCH 0.029 0.042 0.094 0.076 30.4 1.10E−203 3 CCC 0.245 0.436 0.094 0.076 98.0 0 3 CHH 0.035 0.057 0.092 0.076 31.2 1.42E−214 3 ECC 0.043 0.052 0.090 0.076 27.2 1.33E−162 4 HCCH 0.0025 0.0040 0.057 0.042 9.4 4.30E−21 4 HCHH 0.0026 0.0044 0.057 0.042 9.6 4.55E−22 4 HCCC 0.026 0.046 0.056 0.042 30.0 7.12E−198 4 CCCH 0.023 0.039 0.056 0.042 27.3 2.22E−164 4 CECH 0.00083 0.00077 0.055 0.042 3.7 0.000142 ^(a)Table 1 shows the secondary structure motifs (coil [C], strand [E], or helix [H]) most over-represented in EBIEs. Full distributions are shown for sequences of length 1 and 2, and the 5 most over-represented (and statistically significant) sequences of length 3 and 4. The table shows the frequency of that motif in the PDB generally, the frequency in EBIEs, the probability of any given instance of that motif participating in an EBIE, the null probability of anysequence of that length participating in an EBIE, and the Z-score and P-value of that over- or under-representation. All calculations were done on the weighted set of chains. *P-values denoted 0 fell below the computational threshold of Microsoft Excel, and are therefore less than 10⁻³⁰⁰.

Next, amino acid sequences which appear as subsequences within EBIEs (e.g., an interacting trimer which makes up only part of an EBIE) were considered. Due to computational restrictions, the statistical analysis was only performed on dimers, trimers, and tetramers. Many of these short amino acid sequences are significantly over-represented in the set of EBIEs (Table 2).

TABLE 2 TOP SEQUENCE MOTIFS IN EBIEs, IGNORING SECONDARY STRUCTURE.^(a) (SEQ ID NOS 12-26, respectively, in order of appearance) Null Fraction in Fraction in Probability Probability Size Sequence PDB EBIEs in EBIE in EBIE Z Score P-value* 2 HH 0.00109 0.00032 0.30 0.15 32.9 5.43E−238 2 WC 9.48E−05 2.26E−05 0.24 0.15 5.9 2.10E−09 2 CH 0.00037 8.04E−05 0.22 0.15 9.1 6.03E−20 2 HM 0.00051 0.00011 0.21 0.15 10.2 8.33E−25 2 CS 0.00070 0.00015 0.21 0.15 11.1 4.95E−29 3 SCW 5.35E−06 4.69E−06 0.88 0.076 16.6 1.01E−25 3 HHH 0.00033 0.00011 0.33 0.076 42.3 0 3 WCG 1.87E−05 6.26E−06 0.33 0.076 10.0 3.96E−23 3 SHM 8.78E−05 2.29E−05 0.26 0.076 15.6 2.13E−54 3 VAC 3.48E−05 8.11E−06 0.23 0.076 8.3 1.32E−16 4 CSAG 1.55E−05 6.55E−11 1.26 0.042 21.8 1.56E−29 4 TQWC 1.79E−06 7.58E−12 0.98 0.042 11.5 7.42E−09 4 HCGV 5.29E−06 2.23E−11 0.80 0.042 12.3 5.04E−10 4 ACNG 2.96E−06 1.25E−11 0.80 0.042 11.1 6.40E−09 4 DACQ  6.9E−06 2.92E−11 0.79 0.042 12.6 4.18E−11 ^(a)Table 2 shows the amino acid sequences most over-represented in EBIEs, ignoring secondary structure. The top five most over-represented (and statistically significant) examples are shown for sequences of length 2, 3, and 4. The table shows the frequency of that motif in the PDB generally (weighted by surface-interior proclivity to match the surface-interior distribution of EBIEs, as described above), the frequency in EBIEs, the probability of any given instance of that motifparticipating in an EBIE, the null probability of any sequence of that length participating in an EBIE, and the Z-score and P-value of that over- or under-representation. All calculations were done on the weighted set of chains. *P-values denoted 0 fell below the computational threshold of Microsoft Excel, and are therefore less than 10⁻³⁰⁰.

Finally, it was determined which complete EBIE sequences appeared significantly more frequently than their background frequency would suggest (Table 3).

TABLE 3 TOP SEQUENCE MOTIFS IN EBIEs, INCLUDING SECONDARY STRUCTURE.^(a) (SEQ ID NOS 27-41, respectively, in order of appearance) Null Secondary Fraction Fraction in Probability Probability Size Sequence Structure in PDB EBIEs in EBIE in EBIE Z Score P-value* 2 CW H  2.2E−05 1.01E−05 0.46 0.15 9.8 1.59E−22 2 HH CC 0.00060 0.00023 0.38 0.15 39.0 0 2 WC CC 3.75E−05 1.37E−05 0.37 0.15 9.0 3.82E−19 2 HM CC 0.00022 7.21E−05 0.32 0.15 17.5 2.31E−68 2 GK CH 0.00029 8.05E−05 0.28 0.15 14.8 2.31E−49 3 PTW CEE 2.17E−06 2.35E−06 1.08 0.076 12.2 5.03E−14 3 CAT ECC 1.94E−06 1.96E−06 1.01 0.076 11.5 5.15E−12 3 VAC ECC 7.11E−06 7.16E−06 1.01 0.076 22.1 5.11E−44 3 GSC CCH 3.19E−06 2.96E−06 0.93 0.076 13.6 5.11E−17 3 VGK CCH 1.56E−05 1.33E−05 0.85 0.076 27.5 4.72E−164 4 AGKT CCHH 1.43E−05 6.04E−11 2.12 0.042 19.6 5.89E−24 4 VGKS CCHH 2.49E−05 1.05E−10 1.39 0.042 27.5 1.88E−45 4 GNLA CCCE 1.97E−06 8.33E−12 1.33 0.042 13.0 3.81E−10 4 QGLG CCHH  1.2E−06 5.08E−12 1.33 0.042 11.6 5.84E−09 4 AAGK CCCH 5.92E−06  2.5E−11 1.31 0.042 16.9 6.53E−17 ^(a)Table 3 shows the amino acid sequences most over-represented in EBIEs, considering secondary structure. The top five most over-represented (and statistically significant) examples are shown for sequences of length 2, 3, and 4, where the sequence is considered to be the combination of residue identity and secondary structure (coil [C], strand [E], or helix [H]) for that position, as calculated by DSSP. The table shows the frequency of that motif in the PDB generally(weighted by surface-interior proclivity to match the surface-interior distribution of EBIEs, as described above), the frequency in EBIEs, the probability of any given instance of that motif participating in an EBIE, the null probability of any sequence of that length participating in an EBIE, and the Z-score and P-value of that over- or under-representation. All calculations were done on the weighted set of chains. *P-values denoted 0 fell below the computational threshold of Microsoft Excel, and are therefore less than 10⁻³⁰⁰.

As of the time of the analysis presented herein, among the PDB protein chains there were 54,317,358 potential epitope subsequences of length 1 to 6. The substrings describe primary and secondary structure and are of forms like FxGH (SEQ ID NO: 539) CcCH, i.e., intermediate amino acid letters masked by x's are ignored but their secondary structure is still considered. There are 31 such masks total. Not every possible permutation of 20 amino acids and 3 structure codes among the 31 masks (57,625,347,600 total) is found in the PDB. Accordingly, 54,317,358 is the number of independent trials for purposes of Bonferroni correction for multiple-hypothesis testing. Therefore, the 5% significance threshold becomes 9.205e-10 after dividing by the number of independent tests.

In some embodiments, all epitope subsequences that make up the final library have an over-representation-in-interfaces P-value below the afore mentioned significance threshold. In some embodiments, the sequence's redundancy-weighted “in epitopes” and “in prior” counts are at least 10 (in order to deprioritize the few epitopes with very low counts that still manage to remain significant). In some embodiments, the fraction of redundancy-corrected occurrences of the epitope having non-water bridging solvent molecules is no more than 50% of the total such count, and the sequence's over-representation ratio (redundancy-corrected count in epitopes/expected redundancy-corrected count in epitopes) is at least 1.5. The number of epitopes that meet these four criteria is 2,040. They make up one embodiment of an epitope subsequence library for use in crystallization engineering.

Tables 4-35 (Table 5, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 118-216, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 6, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 217-315, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 7, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 316-414, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 8, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 415-513, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 9, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 514-612, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 10, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 613-711, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 11, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 712-810, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 12, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 811-909, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 13, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 910-1,008, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 14, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,009-1,107, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 15, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,108-1,206, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 16, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,207-1,305, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 17, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,306-1,404, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 18, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,405-1,503, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 19, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,504-1,602, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 20, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,603-1,701, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 21, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,702-1,800, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 22, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,801-1,899, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 23, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,900-1,998, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 24, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,999-2,097, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 25, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,098-2,196, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 26, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,197-2,295, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 27, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,296-2,394, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 28, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,395-2,493, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 29, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,494-2,592, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 30, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,593-2,691, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 31, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,692-2,790, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 32, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,791-2,889, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 33, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,890-2,988, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 34, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,989-3,087, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 35, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 3,088-3,186, respectively, in order of appearance) (in Appendix A) provide a list of 100 top patterns (engineering candidates) for epitopes in each of 32 interaction pattern classes. Column “Sequence” provides the amino acid sequence of the epitope subsequence (Tables 5-35 (Table 5, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 118-216, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 6, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 217-315, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 7, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 316-414, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 8, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 415-513, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 9, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 514-612, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 10, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 613-711, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 11, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 712-810, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 12, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 811-909, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 13, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 910-1,008, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 14, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,009-1,107, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 15, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,108-1,206, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 16, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,207-1,305, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 17, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,306-1,404, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 18, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,405-1,503, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 19, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,504-1,602, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 20, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,603-1,701, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 21, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,702-1,800, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 22, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,801-1,899, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 23, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,900-1,998, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 24, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,999-2,097, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 25, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,098-2,196, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 26, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,197-2,295, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 27, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,296-2,394, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 28, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,395-2,493, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 29, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,494-2,592, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 30, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,593-2,691, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 31, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,692-2,790, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 32, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,791-2,889, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 33, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,890-2,988, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 34, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,989-3,087, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 35, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 3,088-3,186, respectively, in order of appearance)) or of a single amino acid (Table 4). Lower case ‘x’ means that that the amino acid identity of the residue at that position has not been explicitly considered. Column “Structure” shows the observed secondary structure motifs (loop or coil [C], beta strand [E], or helix [H]) of the pattern. All measured frequencies of occurrence were redundancy-corrected. Column “In Epitopes” represents the observed number of occurrences of each epitope in the PDB. Column “Expected in Epi” represents the expected number of each epitope in crystal-packing interfaces in the PDB. Column “In PDB” represents the total number of times the epitope's sequence appears in the PDB, regardless of whether or not it participates in interactions. Column “Z-score” represents the number of standard deviations that the observed count is away from the expected count. P-values represent the upper and the lower tail integrals of the binomial distribution. Column “Distribution” represents whether the distribution is approximated as normal (N) or as exact binomial (B). The “Observed ratio” is the fraction of “In PDB” that actually makes crystal-packing contacts. “Null probability” is the fraction of “In PDB” expected in crystal-packing epitopes. All calculations were done on the weighted set of chains. * —P-values denoted 0 fell below the lowest floating point precision value, and are therefore at least less than 10⁻³⁰⁰.

Table 36 (in Appendix A) provides a list of epitopes subsequences according to some embodiments of the invention. In Table 36, “Num Crystal Sets” is the number of crystals in the PDB containing the epitope subsequence after correction for redundancy in overall packing using PSS. “Num Interface Intersets” is the number of interfaces in the PDB containing the epitope subsequence after correction for redundancy in overall packing using PSS. “Num Chainsets 25” is the number of sequence-unique proteins (<25% identity between any pair) in the PDB containing the epitope subsequence. “Non-Water Solvent” is the fraction of epitopes containing the epitope subsequence whose contacts to the partner epitope across the crystal-packing interface involve bridging interactions via ligands bound to the protein or via small molecules from the crystallization solution other than water. The details for Table 37 is provided further below.

Surprisingly, many epitopes in Tables 2-3 and 5-37 (Table 5, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 118-216, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 6, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 217-315, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 7, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 316-414, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 8, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 415-513, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 9, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 514-612, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 10, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 613-711, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 11, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 712-810, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 12, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 811-909, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 13, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 910-1,008, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 14, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,009-1,107, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 15, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,108-1,206, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 16, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,207-1,305, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 17, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,306-1,404, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 18, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,405-1,503, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 19, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,504-1,602, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 20, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,603-1,701, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 21, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,702-1,800, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 22, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,801-1,899, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 23, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,900-1,998, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 24, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,999-2,097, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 25, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,098-2,196, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 26, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,197-2,295, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 27, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,296-2,394, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 28, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,395-2,493, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 29, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,494-2,592, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 30, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,593-2,691, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 31, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,692-2,790, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 32, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,791-2,889, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 33, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,890-2,988, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 34, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,989-3,087, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 35, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 3,088-3,186, respectively, in order of appearance) include polar residues. Epitopes with polar residues are advantageous as they are less likely to cause the modified protein to become insoluble.

In some embodiments, the epitope library comprises the epitopes in Tables 5-37 (Table 5, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 118-216, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 6, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 217-315, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 7, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 316-414, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 8, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 415-513, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 9, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 514-612, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 10, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 613-711, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 11, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 712-810, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 12, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 811-909, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 13, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 910-1,008, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 14, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,009-1,107, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 15, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,108-1,206, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 16, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,207-1,305, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 17, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,306-1,404, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 18, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,405-1,503, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 19, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,504-1,602, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 20, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,603-1,701, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 21, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,702-1,800, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 22, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,801-1,899, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 23, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,900-1,998, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 24, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,999-2,097, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 25, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,098-2,196, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 26, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,197-2,295, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 27, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,296-2,394, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 28, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,395-2,493, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 29, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,494-2,592, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 30, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,593-2,691, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 31, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,692-2,790, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 32, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,791-2,889, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 33, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,890-2,988, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 34, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,989-3,087, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 35, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 3,088-3,186, respectively, in order of appearance). In some embodiments, the epitope library comprises at least 100, at least 200, or at least 300 epitopes from the list of epitopes in Tables 2-3 and 5-37 (Table 5, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 118-216, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 6, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 217-315, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 7, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 316-414, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 8, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 415-513, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 9, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 514-612, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 10, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 613-711, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 11, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 712-810, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 12, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 811-909, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 13, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 910-1,008, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 14, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,009-1,107, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 15, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,108-1,206, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 16, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,207-1,305, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 17, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,306-1,404, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 18, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,405-1,503, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 19, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,504-1,602, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 20, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,603-1,701, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 21, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,702-1,800, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 22, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,801-1,899, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 23, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,900-1,998, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 24, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 1,999-2,097, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 25, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,098-2,196, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 26, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,197-2,295, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 27, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,296-2,394, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 28, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,395-2,493, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 29, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,494-2,592, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 30, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,593-2,691, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 31, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,692-2,790, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 32, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,791-2,889, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 33, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,890-2,988, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 34, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 2,989-3,087, respectively, in order of appearance; Table 35, in its entirety, discloses SEQ ID NOS 3,088-3,186, respectively, in order of appearance).

Computational Methods for Modifying Protein Sequences to Improve their Crystallization

Methods for modifying protein amino acid sequences to improve crystallization properties of the protein can be implemented on a server (in some instances referred to herein as the “protein engineering” server). In some embodiments, the server accepts a target protein sequence from a user and outputs one or more (in some embodiments several) protein sequences related to the target sequence, but having amino acid mutations that will improve crystallization of the target sequences. In general, the predicted secondary and tertiary structure of the target protein sequence is preserved in the modified protein.

One such embodiment of the method is described with reference to a protein engineering server described with reference to FIG. 6. In this embodiment, a user provides the amino acid sequence of the target protein to the server (the server receives the target protein sequence from the user). The server finds homologous protein sequences, for example using a program such as BLASTp, available through the National Center for Biotechnology Information (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov), and are described in, for example, Altschul et al. (1990), J. Mol. Biol. 215:403-410; Gish and States (1993), Nature Genet. 3:266-272; Madden et al. (1996), Meth. Enzymol. 266:131-141; Altschul et al. (1997), Nucleic Acids Res. 25:33 89-3402); Zhang et al. (2000), J. Comput. Biol. 7(1-2):203-14.

The server then performs a multiple sequence alignment of the target sequence with the homologous protein sequences for example using a program such as CLUSTAL (Chema et al., Multiple sequence alignment with the Clustal series of programs. Nucleic Acids Res 31(13):3497-500 (2003)). The server can also predict the structure of the target protein sequences, for example using a program such as PHD/PROF (Rost, B., PHD: predicting one-dimensional protein structure by profile-based neural networks. Methods in Enzymology 266, 525-539 (1996)). The epitope engineering part of the server takes one or more inputs selected from any combination of the target protein sequence, multiple sequence alignments, predicted secondary structure and the epitope subsequence library and provides a list of recommended mutations to improve protein crystallization. The output from the server can either be in the form of a list of mutations to be made in the target sequence or in the form of one or more amino acid sequences of the modified protein.

In some embodiments, multiple epitope subsequences are introduced in the amino acid sequence of the target protein simultaneously to provide a modified protein. For example, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or more epitope subsequences can be introduced into the same target protein to generate a modified protein.

In some embodiments, the engineering part of the server uses one or more of the following epitope prioritization criteria: over-representation P-value of the epitope subsequence in packing interfaces; fraction of occurrences of that epitope subsequence that make crystal-packing contacts in the PDB (i.e., that reside within EBIEs); frequency of occurrence of that epitope subsequence in the PDB database; sequence diversity of proteins containing that epitope subsequence in the PDB; sequence diversity of partner epitopes interacting with the corresponding epitope across crystal-packing interfaces in the PDB; absence of non-water bridging ligands in the crystal-packing interactions made by the corresponding epitopes in the PDB; lack of increase in hydrophobicity of the modified protein by introducing the epitope subsequence; or predicted influence of the epitope subsequence on the solubility of the modified protein. Each of the prioritization criteria can be assigned a different weight, including no weight. Any combination of these prioritization criteria can be used.

In some embodiments, an epitope subsequence that is over-represented by P-value of the epitope subsequence in the epitope subsequence library is a particularly suitable epitope subsequence for improving protein crystallization.

Fraction of epitope subsequence in crystal-packing contacts is the redundancy-corrected number of an epitope subsequence in crystal-packing contacts in the PDB divided by the redundancy-corrected total number of the epitope subsequence in the PDB. In some embodiments, an epitope subsequence for which a a high fraction of its occurences in the PDB occur in crystal-packing contacts is a particularly suitable epitope for improving protein crystallization.

In some embodiments, an epitope with a high frequency of occurrence in the PDB is a particularly suitable epitope subsequence for improving protein crystallization. In some embodiments, an epitope subsequence that is present in proteins of diverse sequence in the PDB is a particularly suitable epitope subsequence for improving protein crystallization.

Partner epitopes are other epitopes contacted by an epitope in the PDB. In some embodiments, an epitope subsequence whose corresponding epitopes contact a diverse set of different epitopes in the PDB is a particularly suitable epitope for improving protein crystallization.

Non-water bridging ligands are non-protein molecules such as nucleotides and buffer salts. In some embodiments, an epitope subsequence whose corresponding epitopes frequently make contacts to partner epitopes via a non-water bridging ligand in the PDB is not a particularly suitable epitope subsequence for improving protein crystallization.

In some embodiments, an epitope subsequence that does not increase the hydrophobicity of the modified protein is a particularly suitable epitope subsequence for improving protein crystallization.

In some embodiments, an epitope subsequence that does not reduce the solubility of the modified protein is a particularly suitable epitope subsequence for improving protein crystallization. Solubility of a protein can be predicted, for example, using a computational predictor of protein expression/solubility (PES) was produced (available online at http://nmr.cabm.rutgers edu:8080/PES/) (Price et al., 2011, Microbial Informatics and Experimentation, 1:6, doi:10.1186/2042-5783-1-6). Solubility can also be predicted as described in PCT/US11/24251, filed Feb. 9, 2011.

In some embodiments, the prioritized selection criterion is over-representation ratio, using a P-value cutoff. In some embodiments, the selection criteria are selected to prioritize mutations improving over-representation ratio at a given site (i.e., avoiding removing an epitope subsequence with a better ratio than the new epitope subsequence). In some embodiments, the selection criteria are selected to prioritize epitopes subsequence observed in packing interactions in at least 50 sequence-unrelated proteins (“chainsets”) in the PDB. In some embodiments, the selection criteria are selected to favor substitutions maintaining or increasing polarity over those reducing polarity.

The list of epitopes subsequence in the epitope subsequence library can be obtained from the comprehensive hierarchical analysis of the entirety of the PDB (several million epitopes total, the counts for each being redundancy-corrected), obtained for example as described below, which is then culled by the over-representation significance P-value against the Bonferroni-corrected 95% significance threshold. Epitopes subsequence can be discarded if they primarily participate only in solvent molecule-mediated bridging interactions involving molecules other than water, such as epitopes in nucleotide-binding motifs. Epitope subsequences can also be discarded if the total number of distinct protein homology sets that the corresponding epitopes appears in is too low, to ensure that the epitope's source structures have some variety.

In some embodiments, the resulting epitope subsequence library contains 1000-3000 epitopes. In some embodiments, the epitope subsequence library contains about 1000, about 2000, or about 3000 epitopes. In a specific embodiment, the epitope subsequence library contains about two-thousand epitopes.

In some embodiments, the epitope subsequences are 1-6 residues in size. In other embodiments, the epitope subsequences are 2-15 residues in size. Each epitope also has a secondary structure mask associated with it, for example, HHH, CCCC, HCCCH, ECCE, where H=helix, C=coli and E=beta strand.

In some embodiments, to generate mutation suggestions to improve crystallization for a protein of unknown structure, the method combines the epitope subsequence library, a secondary structure prediction by PHD/PROF, and a multiple sequence alignment of proteins homologous to the target. At every position in the target protein sequence, the method examines whether any one of the epitope subsequences from the epitope library can be introduced there through a change of a few amino acids. In some embodiments, a mutation at any one position is only allowed if the new amino acid can also be found at the same aligned position in one of the other homologous proteins. In some embodiments, “correlated evolution” metrics (Liu et al., Analysis of correlated mutations in HIV-1 protease using spectral clustering. Bioinformatics 2008, 24 (10), 1243-50; Eyal et al., Rapid assessment of correlated amino acids from pair-to-pair (P2P) substitution matrices. Bioinformatics 2007, 23 (14), 1837-9; Hakes et al., Specificity in protein interactions and its relationship with sequence diversity and coevolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2007, 104 (19), 7999-8004; Kann et al., Correlated evolution of interacting proteins: looking behind the mirrortree. J Mol Biol 2009, 385 (1), 91-8; Kann et al., Predicting protein domain interactions from coevolution of conserved regions. Proteins 2007, 67 (4), 811-20) can be used to deprioritize mutations anti-correlated with residue identity at other positions in the protein sequence to be mutated, which may be predictive of reduced stability of modified proteins.

In some embodiments, the secondary structure of the epitope subsequence to be inserted matches the predicted secondary structure (within some tolerated deviation). These criteria increase the probability that the mutations do not destabilize the target protein by introducing biophysically incongruent changes.

In some embodiments, there are approximately 100-300 epitope subsequences from the library that can be introduced at some position within the sequence in agreement with these guidelines.

In some embodiments, the epitope subsequences that are expected to improve crystallization of the target protein are sorted by their over-representation ratio in the PDB and presented to the researcher. The researcher can choose which and how many mutations to make, preferentially starting from the top of the list, depending on the available resources and specific peculiarities of the target protein.

Protein Engineering Server

The techniques, methods and systems disclosed herein may be implemented as a computer program product for use with a computer system or computerized electronic device. Such implementations may include a series of computer instructions, or logic, fixed either on a tangible medium, such as a computer readable medium (e.g., a diskette, CD-ROM, ROM, flash memory or other memory or fixed disk) or transmittable to a computer system or a device, via a modem or other interface device, such as a communications adapter connected to a network over a medium.

The medium may be either a tangible medium (e.g., optical or analog communications lines) or a medium implemented with wireless techniques (e.g., Wi-Fi, cellular, microwave, infrared or other transmission techniques). The series of computer instructions embodies at least part of the functionality described herein with respect to the system. Those skilled in the art should appreciate that such computer instructions can be written in a number of programming languages for use with many computer architectures or operating systems.

Furthermore, such instructions may be stored in any tangible memory device, such as semiconductor, magnetic, optical or other memory devices, and may be transmitted using any communications technology, such as optical, infrared, microwave, or other transmission technologies.

It is expected that such a computer program product may be distributed as a removable medium with accompanying printed or electronic documentation (e.g., shrink wrapped software), preloaded with a computer system (e.g., on system ROM or fixed disk), or distributed from a server or electronic bulletin board over the network (e.g., the Internet or World Wide Web). Of course, some embodiments of the invention may be implemented as a combination of both software (e.g., a computer program product) and hardware. Still other embodiments of the invention are implemented as entirely hardware, or entirely software (e.g., a computer program product).

Efficient Mutational Engineering of Protein Crystallization

The invention provides a new approach to engineering improved protein crystallization based on introduction of historically successful crystallization epitopes into crystallization-resistant proteins. Datamining the results of high-throughput experimental studies indicated that crystallization propensity is controlled primarily by the prevalence of low-entropy surface epitopes capable of mediating high-quality crystal-packing interactions (Price et al., Understanding the physical properties that control protein crystallization by analysis of large-scale experimental data. Nat Biotechnol 27 (1), 51-7 (2009)). The PDB contains a massive archive of such epitopes in deposited crystal structures.

In one embodiment, the invention provides methods for mutational engineering of crystallization that are efficient enough to enable the structure of any target protein to be determined with relatively modest effort compared to pre-existing methods.

The thermodynamics of crystallization have been analyzed extensively. If the individual packing interfaces in the lattice have favorable free energy, formation of a regular lattice is thermodynamically favored because of the consistent gain in energy for every added molecule. The prevalence of surface epitopes with high propensity to form such favorable interactions is likely to determine whether a particular protein can find a regular lattice structure with favorable intermolecular interactions or whether it precipitates amorphously with heterogeneous packing interactions. Increasing the prevalence of surface epitopes with favorable packing potential, as evidenced by participation in many interfaces in the PDB, can increase the probability of high quality crystallization.

Surface Entropy is a Determinant of Protein Crystallization Propensity

Results of large-scale experimental studies were analyzed to develop insight into the physical properties controlling protein crystallization. Statistical analyses were used to evaluate the relationship between protein sequence and successful crystal-structure determination (Price et al., Understanding the physical properties that control protein crystallization by analysis of large-scale experimental data. Nat Biotechnol 27 (1), 51-7 (2009)). The dataset comprised 679 biochemically well-behaved proteins that were taken through a consistent expression, purification, quality-control, and crystallization pipeline to yield 157 structures. Proteins yielding crystals of insufficient quality for structure determination were considered failures even if diffraction was observed, as occurred for 39 proteins. Retrospective analyses demonstrated that some key sequence features of these are more similar to proteins that failed to yield structures than those that did. Sequence properties that were analyzed included the frequency of each amino acid, mean hydrophobicity, mean side-chain entropy, a variety of electrostatic parameters, and the fraction of residues predicted to be disordered by the program DISOPRED2 (Ward et al., The DISOPRED server for the prediction of protein disorder. Bioinformatics 20 (13), 2138-9 (2004)). Logistic regressions were performed to evaluate the relationship between each of these continuous sequence parameters and the binary outcome of the crystallization/structure-determination effort. These analyses demonstrated that many sequence parameters are significantly predictive of outcome. However, multiple logistic regression and other analyses showed that most sequence effects are surrogates for side-chain entropy. Statistically independent contributions are made only by the predicted fraction of disordered residues (an inhibitory factor) and the fractional content of Ala, Gly, and possibly Phe residues (all positively correlated with success). Furthermore, we demonstrated that the side-chain entropy effect is localized to residues predicted to be surface exposed according to the PHD-PROF program (Rost, B., PHD: predicting one-dimensional protein structure by profile-based neural networks. Methods in Enzymology 266, 525-539 (1996)), which predicts both secondary structure and surface localization with ˜80% accuracy.

These analyses establish surface entropy as a major determinant of protein crystallization propensity. They also indicated that the Gly residues promoting successful crystallization are localized to short surface loops and likely to be at least partially buried in inter-protein packing interfaces.

Thermodynamic Stability is not a Major Determinant of Protein Crystallization Propensity

In the studies described herein, thermodynamic stabilities of a substantial subset of proteins in the crystallization dataset were measured. These studies showed a small advantage for hyper-stable proteins but equivalent crystallization propensity for proteins spanning the wide range of stability characteristic of the most proteins from mesophilic organisms. Therefore, thermodynamic stability is not a major determinant of protein crystallization. In aggregate, large-scale experimental studies support the premise that protein surface properties, especially the prevalence of well-ordered epitopes capable of mediating inter-protein packing interactions, are paramount in determining crystallization propensity. This basis provided the impetus to systematically characterize such epitopes in the existing PDB with the goal of developing methods to use historically successful epitopes for rational engineering of improved protein crystallization.

Hydrodynamic Heterogeneity and Aggregation Impede Crystallization

The final crystallization stock of every protein in the experimental dataset was characterized using gel-filtration/static-light-scattering analyses. Consistent with previous theoretical and protein-engineering studies, stable oligomers crystallize significantly better than monomers. However, hydrodynamic heterogeneity impedes crystallization and aggregation strongly inhibits it. Although formation of specific oligomers strongly promotes crystallization, heterogeneous self-association inhibits it. Successful crystallization thus requires minimal non-specific self-association in dilute aqueous buffers but strong self-association under the low water-activity conditions used to form protein crystals. Accordingly, proteins with crystal structures deposited in the PDB should be enriched for surface epitopes with this special combination of physical properties.

Single Amino-Acid Properties that Promote Crystallization Reduce Protein Solubility

In a follow-up study, equivalent datamining methods were used to analyze correlations between sequence properties and in vivo expression/solubility results (Price et al., 2011, Microbial Informatics and Experimentation, 1:6, doi:10.1186/2042-5783-1-6). This study examined 7733 proteins expressed and purified consistently using a T7 vector in codon-enhanced E. coli BL21λ(DE3) cells (PCT/US11/24251, filed Feb. 9, 2011). The relationship between primary sequence properties and the probability of obtaining a protein preparation useful for structural studies were analyzed. A computational predictor of protein expression/solubility (P_(ES)) was produced (available online at http://nmr.cabm.rutgers.edu:8080/PES/). With the exception of predicted backbone disorder, which inhibits both crystallization and solubility, every sequence property that promotes crystallization reduces solubility and vice-versa. These results demonstrate that single-residue mutations designed to enhance crystallization will tend to reduce the probability of obtaining a soluble protein preparation suitable for crystallization screening (FIG. 7).

Moreover, published results showed that hydrodynamic heterogeneity and aggregation, which are correlated with low solubility, significantly impede crystallization (Price et al., Understanding the physical properties that control protein crystallization by analysis of large-scale experimental data. Nat Biotechnol 27 (1), 51-7 (2009); Ferre-D'Amare and Burley, Use of dynamic light scattering to assess crystallizability of macromolecules and macromolecular assemblies. Structure, 2 (5), 357-9 (1994)). Therefore, any strategy focused on single-residue substitutions will suffer from problems with protein solubility, as observed for the Surface Entropy Reduction method.

Observations on the statistical influence of individual amino acids suggest that more complex sequence epitopes are needed to provide the simultaneous combination of good solubility and low surface entropy characteristic of proteins yielding crystal structures. These observations support the strategy of mining such epitopes out of existing crystal structures in the PDB.

Identification and Analysis of Epitopes Mediating Inter-Protein Packing Interactions in the PDB

A hierarchical analytical scheme was developed to identify contiguous epitopes potentially useful for protein engineering and was used to analyze all inter-protein crystal-packing interactions in the PDB (FIG. 3). Bold lines represent protein chains, grey lines inter-atomic contacts ≦4 Å, and numbered circles show representative elements.

FIG. 5 shows selected statistics from application of our analytical scheme to all crystal structures in the PDB that do not have excessively close inter-protein contacts (39,208 entries). FIG. 5A shows histograms showing distributions of the fraction of residues participating in inter-protein packing contacts. FIG. 5B shows histograms showing number of interfaces per crystal. FIG. 5C is a cumulative distribution graph showing fraction of interfaces equal to or smaller in size than the number indicated on the abscissa. In this graph, residues from the two interacting molecules are counted separately. The curve labeled “Largest” shows data for the single largest non-proper interface in each crystal. FIG. 5D shows cumulative size and range distributions for hierarchically defined packing elements (counting residues from one of the interacting molecules).

The average numbers of total, proper, and non-proper interfaces per protein molecule are 6.9, 1.8 and 5.1, respectively (FIG. 5A). While at least four interfaces are required for a molecule to form a 3-dimensional lattice, fewer are possible if multiple molecules are present in the asymmetric unit. Proteins generally contain only a small number of interfaces above the minimum required for lattice formation, indicating that most interfaces contribute to structural stabilization of the lattice. On average, 50% of surface-exposed residues and 36% of all residues participate in inter-protein packing interactions (FIG. 5B). While interfaces range widely in size, 36% of all interfaces and 42% of non-proper interfaces contain 10 or fewer residues, counting contributions from both sides of the interface (˜5 from each participating molecule) (FIG. 5C). The small size of the average interface is encouraging relative to the feasibility of engineering interface formation. FIG. 5D shows the cumulative size/range distributions for all EBIEs, CBIEs, and half-interfaces (i.e., participating residues from one of the two interacting molecules). These data show that, even though some interfaces are complex, most are topologically simple and local in primary sequence. Half of all half-interfaces are under eight residues in size, and a quarter (8678 total) are under eight residues in range (separation) in the polypeptide chain. FBIEs contain on average fewer than two EBIEs (not shown), and most EBIEs are less than 4 residues in size and 10 in range. These small EBIEs represent prime candidates for engineering improved crystallization.

Quantifying Similarity in the Crystal-Packing Interactions of Homologous Proteins Demonstrates Pervasive Polymorphism in Inter-Protein Interfaces

A general method has been developed to quantify the similarity between different inter-protein packing interfaces formed by homologous proteins. Its foundation is a B-factor-weighted count (C_(ij)) of inter-atomic contacts between residues i and j across the interface:

$C_{ij} = {\sum\limits_{{atom}.{pairs}}\; \left( \frac{{\langle B\rangle}_{2 - {10\%}}}{\sqrt{B_{m}B_{n}}} \right)^{n}}$

The terms B_(m) and B_(n) are the atomic B-factors of the contacting atoms in residues i and j, respectively (i.e., atoms with centers separated by less than 4 Å), while <B>_(2-10%) represents an estimate of the B-factor of the most ordered atoms in the structure (which is calculated as the average B-factor of atoms in the 2^(nd) through 10^(th) percentiles). An upper limit of 1.0 is imposed on the B-factor ratio (i.e., it is set to 1.0 whenever (B_(m)B_(n))^(1/2)<<B>_(2-10%)). The exponent n is an adjustable parameter in our software that allows analyses to be performed either without (n=0) or with (n≧1) down-weighting of contacts between atoms with high B-factors. Such atoms, which have enhanced disorder, may contribute less to interface stabilization, but prior literature on this topic is lacking. Therefore, an analytical approach has been developed facilitating exploration of B-factor effects. Specifically, using higher values of n in our scoring function progressively down-weights high B-factor contacts.

Identification of Statistically Over-Represented Epitope Subsequences in Crystal-Packing Interfaces in the PDB Leads to Novel Ideas for Engineering Improved Protein Crystallization

To identify promising motifs for use in enhancing crystallization propensity, statistical analyses of sequence patterns occurring in protein segments with specific secondary structures were conducted, as analyzed using the DSSP algorithm (Kabsch and Sander, Dictionary of protein secondary structure: pattern recognition of hydrogen-bonded and geometrical features. Biopolymers 22 (12), 2577-637 (1983)), which makes three-state assignments of α-helix (H), 13-strand (E), or loop or coil (C).

The primary reason for using a simultaneous sequence/secondary-structure definition of a packing epitope is to facilitate application of these data to epitope-engineering. A given amino acid sequence will generally have different conformations at different sites in a protein. However, local conformation is likely to be similar when the sequence occurs in the same secondary structure (i.e., on the surface of a β-strand or in an α-helix capping motif). An epitope-visualization tool, implemented as part of our epitope-engineering web-server described below, enables users to verify this assumption for specific epitopes and provides support for its general validity.

Previously, sophisticated primary-sequence-analysis algorithms have been developed to predict local protein secondary structure as well as surface-exposure even in the absence of the 3-dimensional structure of the protein. PHD-PROF is one such program that was trained using DSSP, the software used to classify all crystal-packing epitopes in the PDB. Productive use was made of PHD-PROF in our published crystallization-datamining studies described above. PHD-PROF has been cross-validated and achieves ˜80% accuracy in identifying residue secondary structure and surface-exposure status based on primary sequence alone. These results support the likely efficacy of using PHD-PROF to predict local secondary structure to guide introduction of historically successful crystallization epitopes at productive sites in proteins with unknown tertiary structure.

The initial approach to prioritizing the most promising crystallization epitope subsequences for engineering applications involves ranking their degree of over-representation in packing contacts in non-BioMT interfaces in the PDB (FIG. 1). Accurate assessment of over-representation requires careful correction for redundancy in previous observations of crystal-packing as well as normalization for the biased distribution of amino acids found on protein surfaces. PSS, described above, is used to quantitatively correct epitope subsequence counts for redundancies between the different packing interfaces in which they are found. The marginal count for each occurrence of a sub-epitope in an interface in a crystal is inversely proportional to the total number of crystals mostly identical to the given crystal, and to the number of interfaces within the crystal mostly identical to the given interface. Epitope subsequences in bio-oligomer (BIOMT) interfaces do not contribute to the count. This approach substantially boosts signal strength by counting the multiple contacts formed by an efficacious epitope subsequence found in crystal structures of homologous proteins when that epitope subsequence repeatedly participates in novel packing interactions.

To calculate the whether a given epitope subsequence appears in crystal packing interfaces more frequently than expected by chance, each epitope subsequences' count must be calibrated against the total number of occurrences of that subsequence in the sequence space of the PDB, and against the variable probability of finding any given amino acid or amino acid sequence on the protein's surface rather than in the interior. For an epitope subsequence with interaction mask m (such as XX or XxxxX), primary and secondary sequence i (such as “ExxxR HhhhH” (“ExxxR” disclosed as SEQ ID NO: 50)) and surface exposure profile s (such as SIIIS), its redundancy-weighted count in crystal packing interfaces is e_msi (the “epitope subsequence” count) and its redundancy-weighted count in the sequence space is p_msi (the “prior” count). The surface profile is calculated by DSSP, which uses a quantitative cut-off for designation of interior residues, allowing up to 15% of their surface area to be solvent exposed. Because of this uncertainty, about 10% of all residues participating in packing contacts are designated as interior. Since the surface profile designations are variable and to some degree arbitrary, they need to be abstracted away using the “surface-expected” method, which predicts how frequently a epitope subsequence would participate in crystal packing interactions if the surface profile bias was removed. The total number of occurrences of a epitope subsequence with interaction mask m and sequence i in interactions is the sum of the counts across all possible surface profiles:

e _(—) mi=Σ _(—) se _(—) msi

While the prior count of a epitope subsequence with mask m and sequence i is accordingly:

p _(—) mi=Σ _(—) sp _(—) msi

The expected number of occurrences of the given epitope subsequence in interactions depends on the frequency of occurrences of all epitope subsequences with the same interaction mask and surface profile, summed across all possible surface profiles:

E(e _(—) mi)=Σ_(—) i[(Σ_(—) je _(—) msj)/(Σ_(—) jp _(—) msj)*p _(—) msi]

Finally, the probability that the calculated epitope subsequence count could have been observed by chance can be calculated by integrating the upper tail of the binomial distribution B(n, p, k) where:

k _(—) mi=e _(—) mi,

n _(—) mi=p _(—) mi, and

p _(—) mi=E(e _(—) mi)/p _(—) mi.

If the calculated probability is below the Bonferonni-corrected significance level of 5%, the given epitope subsequence is designated to be “over-represented”, and its over-representation ratio is equal to:

e _(—) mi/E(e _(—) mi).

The initial analysis conducted using these methods evaluated all possible secondary-structure-specific epitopes subsequences in protein segments from two to six residues in length. The interacting residues in the epitope subsequence had to occur in a single EBIE, while both the interacting and non-interacting residues had to match the secondary-structure pattern at every position. This analysis covers 31 different interaction masks giving a total of over 57 billion possible secondary-structure-specific sub-epitopes. However, only 54,317,358 of these actually occur in crystal structures in the PDB, so this number was used as the correction factor for multiple-hypothesis testing. After applying this correction, 2,040 of these secondary-structure-specific epitope subsequences are over-represented at a Bonferroni-corrected 5% significance level of 9.2×10⁻¹⁰, while also meeting a small set of additional selection criteria (at least 10 redundancy-corrected counts in epitopes, no more than 50% of occurrences involving non-water bridging solvent species, and at least a 1.5 ratio of redundancy-corrected observed vs. expected counts in epitopes).

Table 37 shows the eight top-ranked secondary-structure-specific epitope subsequences in two classes of interest, continuous dimers (XX mask) and dimers separated by four residues (XxxxX mask).

TABLE 37^(a) (SEQ ID NOS 42-57, respectively, in order of appearance) Redundancy- Non- Over- % identity in Secondary corrected homologous representation Fraction in Fraction non- partner Sequence structure counts chains P-value ratio epitopes H₂O solvent epitopes LP CC 3645 2421 5.0e−79 1.3 0.18 0.18 12% GY CC 1961 1241 1.6e−67 1.4 0.22 0.24 12% PN CC 2685 1612 3.9e−62 1.3 0.27 0.19 13% GK CH 497 277 1.7e−61 2.0 0.24 0.74 12% DG CC 5443 2805 7.2e−58 1.2 0.25 0.16 13% PG CC 5008 2600 1.3e−57 1.2 0.25 0.17 12% GF CC 1763 1216 1.0e−55 1.4 0.19 0.21 12% NG CC 4062 2226 2.7e−54 1.2 0.25 0.18 12% ExxxR HhhhH 3547 2041 0.0 2.1 0.28 0.18 15% RxxxE HhhhH 2928 2328 0.0 2.2 0.26 0.17 15% QxxxD HhhhH 1522 1141 1.3e−272 2.3 0.27 0.13 13% RxxxR HhhhH 1627 1078 1.1e−271 2.2 0.28 0.23 15% ExxxE HhhhH 2968 1998 1.6e−251 1.8 0.23 0.16 15% DxxxR HhhhH 1593 1128 4.1e−246 2.2 0.26 0.17 14% ExxxQ HhhhH 1904 1395 3.0e−228 2.0 0.24 0.16 14% AxxxR HhhhH 1717 1299 3.6e−186 1.9 0.17 0.19 14% ^(a)“Sequence” is the string of amino acid letter codes, with capital letters indicating amino acid participating in interactions, and lower-case x's indicating intervening residues (which may or may not be interacting as well). “Secondary structure” indicates structure letter codes (H = helix, E = sheet, C = coil). “Redundancy-corrected counts” is calculated as described in above. “Non-homologous chains” is the number of chainhomology sets in which the epitope can be found in interactions (a chain homology set contains all protein chains that have greater than 25% sequence identity). “P-value” and “over-representation ratio” are calculated as described above. “Fraction in epitopes” is the ratio of the observed redundancy-weighted surface-profile-summed epitope count to the observed prior count. “Fraction non-water solvent” is the fraction of the total redundancy-weighted numberof occurrences of the epitope that participate in inter-protein interactions bridged by a solvent molecule other than water, such as salt ions or nucleotides (ATP). “% id partner epitopes” is the average sequence identity of the partner epitopes of this epitope - the strings of amino acid letter codes corresponding to the residues of the protein with which the residues of the given epitope interact in every interface in which the epitope appears.

Evaluation of these classes is informative for several reasons, including the fact their P-values can be compared directly because they have an equivalent number of occurrences in the PDB. The most over-represented epitope subsequences in the two classes contain different residues, indicating that our statistical methods give results sensitive to local stereochemistry and not merely the amino acid composition. The top-ranking continuous dimers are enriched in Gly residues in loops, consistent with prediction from our earlier crystallization datamining studies that such residues are enriched in packing interfaces (Price et al., Understanding the physical properties that control protein crystallization by analysis of large-scale experimental data. Nat Biotechnol 27 (1), 51-7 (2009)).

Remarkably, dimers separated by four residues are enriched in high-entropy, charged amino acids located on the surfaces of α-helices or in their capping motifs. Given these relative locations, the high-entropy side-chains are likely to be entropically restricted by mutual salt-bridging or hydrogen-bonding (H-bonding) interactions within the secondary-structure specific epitope subsequence. Immobilization of these high-entropy side-chains by local tertiary interactions in the native structure of a protein enables them to participate in crystal-packing interactions without incurring the entropic penalty associated with their immobilization from a disordered conformation on the surface of the protein.

Simple Local Structural Motifs Represent Highly Promising Candidates for Engineering Improved Protein Crystallization Behavior Based on Novel Amino-Acid Substitutions

Certain local structural motifs are highly polar and therefore much less likely than hydrophobic substitutions to reduce protein solubility, which is a major problem with the Surface Entropy Reduction method (Cooper et al., Protein crystallization by surface entropy reduction: optimization of the SER strategy. Acta crystallographica, 63 (Pt 5), 636-45 (2007); Derewenda and Vekilov, Entropy and surface engineering in protein crystallization. Acta crystallographica 62 (Pt 1), 116-24 (2006); Longenecker et al., Protein crystallization by rational mutagenesis of surface residues: Lys to Ala mutations promote crystallization of RhoGDI. Acta crystallographica, 57 (Pt 5), 679-88 (2001)). Second, they occur in secondary-structure motifs that are reliably classified by standard prediction algorithms, both in terms of their location and their solvent exposure status. Therefore, epitope-engineering efforts should be able to efficiently target the most promising regions of the subject protein, even when its tertiary structure is unknown. Third, it is reassuring that the sub-epitopes in both classes in Table 37 interact with partner epitopes with highly diverse sequences, consistent with our goal of engineering the surface of a protein to have higher interaction probability (i.e., rather than attempting to engineer specific pair-wise packing interactions). Table 38 only shows a small fraction of the statistically over-represented secondary-structure-specific sub-epitopes in the PDB. The full set in Table 37 (Appendix A) covers a much wider variety of sequences and secondary structures, although many of them echo similar physiochemical themes.

Epitope-Engineering Software

Software was written to determine all possible ways that the statistically over-represented epitope subsequences described above can be introduced into a target protein consistent with the sequence profile of the corresponding functional family (FIG. 1). The program takes two input files, one a FASTA-formatted file with a set of homologous protein sequences (with the target protein at the top) and the other the secondary-structure prediction output from PHD/PROF. After using ClustalW to align the homologs, the software systematically analyzes the locations where any of the sub-epitopes can be engineered into the target protein consistent with two criteria.

First, based on the PHD/PROF prediction, the secondary structure at the site of mutagenesis must be likely to match that of the sub-epitope. This restriction increases the probability that the engineered sub-epitope will have a local tertiary structure similar to the over-represented sub-epitopes in the PDB.

Second, in one embodiment, the engineered epitope subsequence contains exclusively amino acids observed to occur at the equivalent position in one of the homologs. In another embodiment, the engineered epitope subsequence is filtered to not contain residues anti-correlated in homologs with other amino acids in the target sequence, as determined using the “correlated evolution” metrics described above. Restricting epitope mutations to substitutions observed in a homolog should reduce the chance that the mutations will impair protein stability. In yet another embodiment, the engineered epitope subsequence is not restricted at all based on homolog sequence, and a greater risk of protein destabilization is tolerated. The computer program returns a comma-separated-value file containing a list of candidate epitope-engineering mutations along with statistics characterizing each epitope subsequence. While this list is sorted according to over-representation P-value, it is readily resorted according to user criteria in any standard spreadsheet program. For a target protein ˜200 residues in length with ˜20 homologous sequences, the program typically returns several hundred candidate mutations. However, longer proteins or proteins with more homologs can yield lists containing thousands of candidate mutations.

Methods for Protein Expression

Strategies and techniques for expressing a protein of interest or a modified protein, for producing nucleic acids encoding a protein of interest or a modified protein are well-known in the art and can be found, e.g., in Berger and Kimmel, Guide to Molecular Cloning Techniques, Methods In Enzymology Vol. 152 Academic Press, Inc., San Diego, Calif. and in Sambrook et al., Molecular Cloning-A Laboratory Manual (2nd ed.) Vol. 1-3 (1989) and in Current Protocols In Molecular Biology, Ausubel, F. M., et al., eds., Greene Publishing Associates, Inc. and John Wiley & Sons, Inc., (1996 Supplement).

Expression systems suitable for use with the methods described herein include, but are not limited to in vitro expression systems and in vivo expression systems. Exemplary in vitro expression systems include, but are not limited to, cell-free transcription/translation systems (e.g., ribosome based protein expression systems). Several such systems are known in the art (see, for example, Tymms (1995) In vitro Transcription and Translation Protocols Methods in Molecular Biology Volume 37, Garland Publishing, NY).

Exemplary in vivo expression systems include, but are not limited to prokaryotic expression systems such as bacteria (e.g., E. coli and B. subtilis), and eukaryotic expression systems including yeast expression systems (e.g., Saccharomyces cerevisiae), worm expression systems (e.g. Caenorhabditis elegans), insect expression systems (e.g. Sf9 cells), plant expression systems, amphibian expression systems (e.g. melanophore cells), vertebrate including human tissue culture cells, and genetically engineered or virally infected whole animals.

Methods Fore Determining Solubility of a Protein

Methods for determining the solubility of a protein are known in the art. For example, a recombinant protein can be isolated from a host cell by expressing the recombinant protein in the cell and releasing the polypeptide from within the cell by any method known in the art, including, but not limited to lysis by homogenization, sonication, French press, microfluidizer, or the like, or by using chemical methods such as treatment of the cells with EDTA and a detergent (see Falconer et al., Biotechnol. Bioengin. 53:453-458 [1997]). Bacterial cell lysis can also be obtained with the use of bacteriophage polypeptides having lytic activity (Crabtree and Cronan, J. E., J. Bact., 1984, 158:354-356).

Soluble materials can be separated form insoluble materials by centrifugation of cell lysates (e.g. 18,000×G for about 20 minutes). After separation of lysed materials into soluble and insoluble fractions, soluble protein can be visualized by using denaturing gel electrophoresis. For example, equivalent amount of the soluble and insoluble fractions can be migrated through the gel. Proteins in both fractions can then be detected by any method known in the art, including, but not limited to staining or by Western blotting using an antibody or any reagent that recognizes the recombinant protein.

Protein Purification

Proteins can also be isolated from cellular lysates (e.g. prokaryotic cell lysates or eukaryotic cell lysates) by using any standard technique known in the art. For example, recombinant polypeptides can be engineered to comprise an epitope tag such as a Hexahistidine (“hexaHis”) tag (SEQ ID NO: 5,227) or other small peptide tag such as myc or FLAG. Purification can be achieved by immunoprecipitation using antibodies specific to the recombinant peptide (or any epitope tag comprised in the amino sequence of the recombinant polypeptide) or by running the lysate solution through an affinity column that comprises a matrix for the polypeptide or for any epitope tag comprised in the recombinant protein (see for example, Ausubel et al., eds., Current Protocols in Molecular Biology, Section 10.11.8, John Wiley & Sons, New York [1993]).

Other methods for purifying a recombinant protein include, but are not limited to ion exchange chromatography, hydroxylapatite chromatography, hydrophobic interaction chromatography, preparative isoelectric focusing chromatography, molecular sieve chromatography, HPLC, native gel electrophoresis in combination with gel elution, affinity chromatography, and preparative isoelectric. See, for example, Marston et al. (Meth. Enz., 182:264-275 [1990]).

Screening of Modified Proteins for Crystallization

Initial high-throughput crystallization screening can be conducted using methods known in the art, for example manually or using the 1,536-well microbatch robotic screen at the Hauptmann-Woodward Institute (Cumbaa et al., Automatic classification of sub-microlitre protein-crystallization trials in 1536-well plates. Acta Crystallogr. 59, 1619-1627 (2003)). Proteins failing to yield rapidly progressing crystal leads can be subjected to vapor diffusion screening, typically 300-500 conditions (e.g., Crystal Screens I & II, PEG-Ion and Index screens from Hampton Research or equivalent screens from Qiagen) at either 4° C., 20° C. or both. Screening can be conducted in the presence of substrate or product compounds If commercially available. Screening can also be conducted using the target protein as a control to evaluate the effect of the introduction of an epitope or multiple epitopes on the crystallization properties of the target protein.

All patents, patent applications and publications cited herein are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety. The disclosures of these publications in their entireties are hereby incorporated by reference into this application in order to more fully describe the state of the art as known to those skilled therein as of the date of the invention described herein.

The following examples illustrate the present invention, and are set forth to aid in the understanding of the invention, and should not be construed to limit in any way the scope of the invention as defined in the claims which follow thereafter.

EXAMPLES

This invention is further illustrated by the following examples, which should not be construed as limiting. Those skilled in the art will recognize, or be able to ascertain, using no more than routine experimentation, numerous equivalents to the specific substances and procedures described herein. Such equivalents are intended to be encompassed in the scope of the claims that follow the examples below.

Example 1 Introduction of Residues from an Observed Crystal-Packing Epitope Improves Crystallization of an Integral Membrane Protein

FIG. 8 shows representative results from an initial attempt to employ a previously observed crystallization epitope to improve the crystallization of a difficult protein.

FIG. 8A is a schematic summary of the results from a representative initial crystallization screen at 20° C. The MD-to-AG mutant yielded 5 excellent hits and 23 total hits, compared to 1 and 8, respectively, for the wild-type protein. FIG. 8B is a micrograph of one well of excellent lead crystals obtained for the MD-to-AG mutant protein (described below) in this screen. FIG. 8C is the same well from a wild-type screen conducted in parallel.

The subject of this study was a polytopic integral membrane protein from E. coli called B0914 whose wild-type sequence only yields poor crystals. Manual inspection of a crystal structure of a remote homologue (Dawson and Locher, Structure of a bacterial multidrug ABC transporter. Nature 443 (7108), 180-5 (2006)) revealed that an Ala-Gly (AG) dipeptide in a periplasmic loop formed part of a crystal-packing interaction. Because the frequency of these two residues correlates most strongly with successful crystal structure determination in our published datamining studies, it was hypothesized that this dipeptide could be used to engineer improved crystallization of another protein. This sub-epitope ranks 20^(th) among the 400 possibilities in the analysis of over-represented continuous dimers.

The sub-epitope was introduced into one of the periplasmic loops in protein B0914, at a site with the sequence met-asp (MD) but where the sequence AG is found in a homolog. This MD-to-AG mutant protein yields more hits and more high quality hits in initial crystallization screens (FIG. 8). Importantly, improved crystallization is obtained even though the interaction partner of the AG epitope from the existing structure was not introduced into the target protein. A second mutant protein containing a similarly chosen crystallization epitope that was not observed in a homologous protein failed to produce properly folded protein, while a series of single-residue substitutions chosen based on different criteria yielded inferior results, including several substitutions recommended by the standard Surface Entropy Reduction algorithm.

Example 2 Generation of Modified Proteins with Epitopes that Increase Protein Crystallization

Amino acid sequences of 13 genes were provided to the server. The amino acid sequences were:

BhR182-21.1 (SEQ ID NO: 1) MIIREATVQDYEEVARLHTQVHEAHVKERGDIFRSNEPTLNPSFFQAAVQGEKSTVLVFV DEREKIGAYSVIHLVQTPLLPTMQQRKTVYISDLCVDETRRGGGIGRLIFEAIISYGKAH QVDAIELDVYDFNDRAKAFYHSLGMRCQKQTMELPLLEHHHHHH ChR11B-227-489-21.2 (SEQ ID NO: 2) NDDVEFRYADFLFKNNNYAEAIEVFNKLEAKKYNSPYIYNRRAVCYYELAKYDLAQKDIE TYFSKVNATKAKSADFEYYGKILMKKGQDSLAIQQYQAAVDRDTTRLDMYGQIGSYFYNK GNFPLAIQYMSKQIRPTTTDPKVFYELGQAYYYNKEYVKADSSFVKVLELKPNIYIGYLW RARANAAQDPDTKQGLAKPYYEKLIEVCAPGGAKYKDELIEANEYIAYYYTINRDKVKAD AAWKNILALDPTNKKAIDGLKMKLEHHHHHH CvR75A-1-152-21.17 (SEQ ID NO: 3) MKKVYIKTFGCQMNEYDSDKMADVLGSAEGMVKTDNPEEADVILFNTCSVREKAQEKVFS DLGRIRPLKEANPDLIIGVGGCVASQEGDAIVKRAPFVDVVFGPQTLHRLPDLIESRKQS GRSQVDISFPEIEKFDHIPPAKVDGGAAFVSILEHHHHHH EcoxPrrC (SEQ ID NO: 4) MGKTLSEIAQQLSTPQKVKKTVHKEVEATRAVPKVQLIYAFNGTGKTRLSRDFKQLLESK VHDGEGEDEAEQSALSRKKILYYNAFTEDLFYWDNDLQEDAEPKLKVQPNSYTNWLLTLL KDLGQDSNIVRYFQRYANDKLTPHFNPDFTEITFSMERGNDERSAHIKLSKGEESNFIWS VFYTLLDQVVTILNVADPDARETHAFDQLKYVFIDDPVSSLDDNHLIELAVNLAGLIKSS ESDLKFIITTHSPIFYNVLFNELNGKVCYMLESFEDGTFALTEKYGDSNKSFSYHLHLKQ TIEQAIADNNVERYHFTLLRNLYEKTASFLGYPKWSELLPDDKQLYLSRIINFTSaSTLS NEAVAEPTPAEKATVKLLLDHLKNNCGFWQQEQKNG ER247A-21.2 (SEQ ID NO: 5) MNETAVYGSDENIIFMRYVEKLHLDKYSVKNTVKTETMAIQLAEIYVRYRYGERIAEEEK PYLITELPDSWVVEGAKLPYEVAGGVFIIEINKKNGCVLNFLHSKLEHHHHHH ER40-21-mgk (SEQ ID NO: 6) MSDDNSHSSDTISNKKGFFSLLLSQLFHGEPKNRDELLALIRDSGQNDLIDEDTRDMLEG VMDIADQRVRDIMIPRSQMITLKRNQTLDECLDVIIESAHSRFPVISEDKDHIEGILMAK DLLPFMRSDAEAFSMDKVLRQAVVVPESKRVDRMLKEFRSQRYHMAIVIDEFGGVSGLVT IEDILELIVGEIEDEYDEEDDIDFRQLSRHTWTVRALASIEDFNEAFGTHFSDEEVDTIG GLVMQAFGHLPARGETIDIDGYQFKVAMADSRRIIQVHVKIPDDSPQPKLDELEHHHHHH EwR161-21.1 (SEQ ID NO: 7) MQSFDVVIAGGGMVGLALACGLQGSGLRIAVLEKQAAEPQTLGKGHALRVSAINAASECL LRHIGVWENLVAQRVSPYNDMQVWDKDSFGKISFSGEEFGFSHLGHIIENPVIQQVLWQR ASQLSDITLLSPTSLKQVAWGENEAFITLQDDSMLTARLVVGADGAHSWLRQHADIPLTF WDYGHHALVANIRTEHPHQSVARQAFHGDGILAFLPLDDPHLCSIVWSLSPEQALVMQSL PVEEFNRQVAMAFDMRLGLCELESERQTFPLMGRYARSFAAHRLVLVGDAAHTIHPLAGQ GVNLGFMDVAELIAELKRLQTQGKDIGQHLYLRRYERRRKHSAAVMLASMQGFRELFDGD NPAKKLLRDVGLVLADKLPGIKPTLVRQAMGLHDLPDWLSAGKLEHHHHHH HR4403-86-543-14.1 (SEQ ID NO: 8) MGHHHHHHSHMNRFEEAKRTYEEGLKHEANNPQLKEGLQNMEARLAERKFMNPFNMPNLYQ KLESDPRTRTLLSDPTYRELIEQLRNKPSDLGTKLQDPRIMTTLSVLLGVDLGSMDEEE EIATPPPPPPPKKETKPEPMEEDLPENKKQALKEKELGNDAYKKKDFDTALKHYDKAKEL DPTNMTYITNQAAVYFEKGDYNKCRELCEKAIEVGRENREDYRQIAKAYARIGNSYFKEE KYKDAIHFYNKSLAEHRTPDVLKKCQQAEKILKEQERLAYINPDLALEEKNKGNECFQKG DYPQAMKHYTEAIKRNPKDAKLYSNRAACYTKLLEFQLALKDCEECIQLEPTFIKGYTRK AAALEAMKDYTKAMDVYQKALDLDSSCKEAADGYQRCMMAQYNRHDSPEDVKRRAMADPE VQQIMSDPAMRLILEQMQKDPQALSEHLKNPVIAQKIQKLMDVGLIAIR KR127C-21.3 (SEQ ID NO: 9) IDNPTPKSSMTFKELYDEWLLVYEKEVQNSTYYKTTRAFEKHVLPVIGSTKLSDFTPMEL QNFRNDLSEKLKFARKLFGMVRKVFNHAALLSYIQANPALPVTSQGIKLEHHHHHH MaR262-21.1 (SEQ ID NO: 10) MPESYWEKVSGKNIPSSLDLYPIIHNYLQEDDEILDIGCGSGKISLELASLGYSVTGIDI NSEAIRLAETAARSPGLNQKTGGKAEFKVENASSLSFHDSSFDFAVMQAFLTSVPDPKER SRIIKEVFRVLKPGAYLYLVEFGQNWHLKLYRKRYLHDFPITKEEGSFLARDPETGETEF IAHHFTEKELVFLLTDCRFEIDYFRVKELETRTGNKILGFVIIAQKLLEHHHHHH IMRFYGADDAIQSGEYQMPEIKVVK PaeKu (SEQ ID NO: 11) MARAIWKGAISFGLVHIPVSLSAATSSQGIDFDWLDQRSMEPVGYKRVNKVTGKEIEREN IVKGVEYEKGRYVVLSEEEIRAAHPKSTQTIEIFAFVDSQEIPLQHFDTPYYLVPDRRGG KVYALLRETLERTGKVALANVVLHTRQHLALLRPLQDALVLITLRWPSQVRSLDGLELDE SVTEAKLDKRELEMAKRLVEDMASHWEPDEYKDSFSDKIMKLVEEKAAKGQLHAVEEEEE VAGKGADIID

Each target sequence was then entered into the protein crystallization server, along with a PROF secondary structure prediction and a FASTA file containing about 50 homologous protein sequences for each target.

Criteria used to select the epitope subsequences expected to improve crystallizability of the proteins included: (1) prioritization by overrepresentation ratio, using P-value cutoff; (2) prioritization of mutations improving over-representation ratio at a given site (i.e., avoiding removing an epitope subsequence with a better ratio than the new epitope subsequence); (3) prioritization of epitope subsequences observed in packing interactions in at least 50 sequence-unrelated proteins (“chainsets” as defined above) in the PDB; and (4) favoring of substitutions maintaining or increasing polarity over those reducing polarity.

The server outputted several hundred possible mutations that introduce one epitope from the epitope library at some position in the protein sequence, with considerations given to primary and secondary structure conservation. The output list was ranked by the over-representation ratio of each candidate epitope.

The researchers went down the list and use their knowledge of the target protein's biophysics and biochemistry to guide their selection of epitopes, skipping epitopes that they believe would endanger the protein's biological activity or structural stability. The researchers decide whether they want to introduce a small and simple or a larger and more complex epitope, and whether the suggested epitope mutation is better than any existing epitope it replaces. In addition to these constraints, the researchers use the epitopes' over-representation ratios, P-values, in-epitopes fractions, non-homologous chainset counts, and non-water solvent fractions to decide which epitopes are better for the given situation. The researchers are able to pick a few, several, or many mutations from the candidates list to engineer in parallel, depending on the available resources and the degree of importance of obtaining a structure.

Some of the engineered proteins and the recommended epitopes chosen for protein expression and crystallization studies are shown in Table 38.

TABLE 38 (“Original Sequence” peptides disclosed as SEQ ID NOS 58-86 and “Sub-epitope” peptides disclosed as SEQ ID NOS 87-117, all respectively, in order of appearance.) Sequence Original ID Number Gene Position Sequence Sub-epitope* 42 BhR182 11 YEEVA YxxxN/HHHHH 43 BhR182 134 DRAKA ExxxR/HHHHH 44 BhR182 39 TLNPSF TxxxxR/CCHHHH 45 BhR182 12 EEVAR YxxxR/HHHHH 46 BhR182 97 DETRRG DxxGxG/CCCCCC 2 CvR75A 90 AIVKR ExxxR/HHHHH 13 CvR75A 19 DKMAD ExxxR/HHHHH 14 CvR75A 65 IRPLK YxxxQ/HHHHH 15 CvR75A 64 RIRP RxxE/HHHH 3 ER40 93 KxxxE 20 ER40 19 FSLLL FxxxQ/HHHHH 21 ER40 38 LALIR ExxxR/HHHHH 22 ER40 245 QAFG SAxG/HHHC 1 HR4403 354 IKGYT ISxxT/CCHHH 4 KR127C 106 YKTEN 27 KR127C 76 KLFGM YxxxM/HHHHH 28 KR127C 55 FTPME LTxxE/CCHHH 29 KR127C 101 PVTSQG DxxGxG/CCCCCC 7 MaR262 38 GCGSG ACxxG 8 MaR262 129 RVLKPG RxxxPE 9 MaR262 48 LASLGY LxxKxY 18 MaR262 188 KELVF KxxxE 6 SiR159 90 RMRAR RxxxH/HHHHH 38 SiR159 44 KSLG SxxG/ECCE 39 SiR159 340 ARCG RxxG/HHCC 40 SiR159 32 SQDAG SxxxH/HHHHH 41 SiR159 140 ADAPVQ LxxxxQ/CCHHHH 5 VpR106 233 KQWLD QxxxD/HHHHH 16 VpR106 57 PLNRFQ LxxxxQ/CCHHHH 17 VpR106 60 RFQNI ExxxR/HHHHH 19 VpR106 42 EAYKF ExxxR/HHHHH *Includes secondary structure class: H = helix, E = β-strand and C is coil.

Example 3 Protein Expression and Crystallization Screening

Proteins from Example 2 are expressed, purified, concentrated to 5-12 mg/ml, and flash-frozen in small aliquots as described in Acton et al., Robotic cloning and Protein Production Platform of the Northeast Structural Genomics Consortium. Methods in Enzymology 394, 210-243 (2005). All proteins contain short 8-residue hexa-histidine purification tags (SEQ ID NO: 5,227) at their N- or C-termini and are metabolically labeled with selenomethionine. Matrix-assisted laser-desorption mass spectrometry is used to verify construct molecular weight. All proteins are ≧95% pure based on visual inspection of Coomasie Blue stained SDS-PAGE gels. The distribution of hydrodynamic species in the protein stock is assayed using static light-scattering and refractive index detectors (Wyatt, Inc., Santa Barbara, Calif.) to monitor the effluent from analytical gel filtration chromatography in 100 mM NaCl, 0.025% (w/v) NaN₃, 100 mM Tris-Cl, pH 7.5, on a Shodex 802.5 column (Showa Denko, Tokyo, Japan). Protein samples are flash frozen in liquid nitrogen in small aliquots prior to crystallization or biophysical characterization. Oligomeric state is inferred from the molecular weight determined by Debye analysis of the light-scattering data (Price et al., Understanding the physical properties that control protein crystallization by analysis of large-scale experimental data. Nat Biotechnol 27 (1), 51-7 (2009)).

Initial high-throughput crystallization screening is conducted using the 1,536-well microbatch robotic screen at the Hauptmann-Woodward Institute (Cumbaa et al., Automatic classification of sub-microlitre protein-crystallization trials in 1536-well plates. Acta Crystallogr. 59, 1619-1627 (2003)). Proteins failing to yield rapidly progressing crystal leads are subjected to vapor diffusion screening, typically 300-500 conditions (Crystal Screens I & II, PEG-Ion and Index screens from Hampton Research or equivalent screens from Qiagen) at both 4° C. and 20° C. Screening is conducted in the presence of substrate or product compounds If commercially available.

Crystal optimization, diffraction data collection at cryogenic temperatures, structure solution using single or multiple-wavelength anomalous diffraction techniques and refinement are conducted using standard methods.

Example 4 Analysis of Intermolecular Packing Interactions in the Protein Data Bank to Guide Rational Engineering of Protein Crystallization

X-ray crystallography is the dominant method for solving protein structures, but despite decades of methodological improvement, most proteins do not yield solvable crystals. Even when selected using the best algorithms available, at most 60% of proteins give crystals of any kind, and no more than 35% give crystals which can be solved. The reasons for this low success rate remain obscure due to our limited understanding of crystallization itself. A better understanding of crystallization is required to identify both problematic areas of the process and potential solutions to this critical barrier. Working within this framework, and as described herein, is a characterization the stereochemical features of crystal packing interactions to guide rational engineer protein sequences to improve crystallization. Described herein is a rigorous parsing of all protein crystal structures in the Protein Data Bank (PDB) to identify and characterize crystal packing patterns. All residues within a minimum contact distance between chains are identified and then grouped into an ascending hierarchy ranging from the simplest elementary binary interacting epitopes to complete binary interprotein interaction interfaces. For counting and averaging purposes, protein chains are redundancy-downweighted to account for homologous chains forming similar crystals, as evaluated by a dot-product-like Packing Similarity Score. Also described herein is an identification of sequences which appear disproportionately frequently in packing interfaces relative to their background frequency in the PDB. These overrepresented sequences are more efficacious at forming favorable packing interactions, and therefore offer attractive possibilities for new engineering approaches to enhance protein crystallizability.

More than 50 years after the solution of the first protein crystal structure Kendrew, et al., Nature 1958, 181 (4610), 662-6), protein crystallization remains a hit-or-miss proposition. However, as long as most proteins cannot be crystallized, crystallization fundamentally remains a hit-or-miss proposition. Synergistic developments in crystallographic methods, synchrotron beamlines, and high-speed computing have made structure solution and refinement routine, even for very large complexes, as long as high-quality crystals are available. However, there has been comparatively little progress in improving methods for protein crystallization. Recent work by structural genomics (SG) consortia has systematically confirmed that most naturally occurring proteins do not readily yield high-quality crystals suitable for x-ray structure determination and that crystallization is the major obstacle to the determination of protein structures using diffraction methods (Canaves, et al., Journal of molecular biology 2004, 344 (4), 977-91; Slabinski, et al., Protein Sci 2007, 16 (11), 2472-82). Many impressive technological innovations during the last 20 years have simplified and streamlined the work involved in protein crystallization. These include the development of highly efficacious chemical screens that mimic historically successful crystallization conditions (Price, et al., Nat Biotechnol 2009, 27 (1), 51-7), sophisticated robotics that enable more crystallization conditions to be screened with less protein and effort (Cooper, et al., Acta crystallographica 2007, 63 (Pt 5), 636-45; Derewenda, Methods 2004, 34 (3), 354-63), and numerous other clever innovations that improve the crystallization process in some cases. Even with these advances, only approximately 1/3 of proteins with even the most promising sequence properties yield crystal structures from a single protein construct.

Existing methods for engineering improved protein crystallization work with limited efficiency. Consistent with this premise, changes in primary sequence have been demonstrated to substantially alter the crystallization properties of many proteins (Derewenda, Acta crystallographica 2006, 62 (Pt 1), 116-24; Stanley, Science (New York, N.Y. 1935, 81 (2113), 644-645). Disordered backbone segments can be identified using elegant hydrogen-deuterium exchange mass spectrometry methods, and genetically engineered constructs with such segments excised have shown improved crystallization properties (Edsall, Journal of the history of biology 1972, 5 (2), 205-57). Progressive truncation of the N- and C-termini of the protein can also yield crystallizable constructs of proteins that initially failed to crystallize (Hunt and Ingram, Nature 1958, 181 (4615), 1062-3). However, many nested truncation constructs generally need to be screened, sometimes with termini differing by as little as two amino acids, and this procedure still frequently fails to yield a soluble protein construct producing high-quality crystals. The Surface Entropy Reduction (SER) method developed by Derewenda and co-workers uses site-directed mutagenesis to replace high-entropy side chains on the surface of the protein (generally lysine, glutamate, and glutamine) with lower entropy side chains (generally alanine) (Derewenda, Acta crystallographica 2006, 62 (Pt 1), 116-24; Stanley, Science (New York, N.Y. 1935, 81 (2113), 644-645; Lessin, et al., J Exp Med 1969, 130 (3), 443-66). In most cases in which a substantial improvement in crystallization has been obtained by this method, a pair of such mutations were introduced at adjacent sites. While some spectacular successes have been obtained this way, most such mutations reduce the solubility of the protein, frequently so severely that a high quality protein preparation can no longer be obtained. Most attempts to employ this technique in the Hunt lab have resulted in production of insoluble protein (unpublished results). The Derewenda group has also evaluated the use of amino acids other than alanine to replace high-entropy side chains (Derewenda, Acta crystallographica 2006, 62 (Pt 1), 116-24; Kendrew, et al., Proc R Soc Lond A Math Phys Sci 1948, 194 (1038), 375-98). These substitutions frequently change the crystallization properties of the protein, but so far, there is no report of such alternative substitutions being used to efficiently engineer crystallization of an otherwise crystallization-resistant protein.

Recent large-scale experimental studies have shown that the surface properties of proteins, and particularly the entropy of the exposed side chains, are a major determinant of protein crystallization propensity (Slabinski, et al., Protein Sci 2007, 16 (11), 2472-82). These studies demonstrated that overall thermodynamic stability is not a major determinant of protein crystallization propensity. They also identified a number of primary sequence properties that correlate with crystallization success, including the fractional content of several individual amino acids. Unfortunately, further studies have demonstrated that every individual amino acid that positively correlates with crystallization success negatively correlates with protein solubility, and vice versa. This effect severely limits the efficacy of using single amino acid substitutions to engineer improved protein crystallization because crystallization probability is low unless starting with a monodisperse soluble protein preparation. Moreover, hydrodynamic heterogeneity and aggregation, which are correlated with low solubility, significantly impede crystallization (Slabinski, et al., Protein Sci 2007, 16 (11), 2472-82; Edsall, Journal of the history of biology 1972, 5 (2), 205-57). Therefore, any engineering strategy focused on single-residue substitutions is likely to suffer from problems with protein solubility, as has been observed for the Surface Entropy Reduction method (Stanley, Science (New York, N.Y. 1935, 81 (2113), 644-645; Lessin, J Exp Med 1969, 130 (3), 443-66; Ferre-D'Amare, Structure 1994, 2 (5), 357-9). More complex approaches than single amino-acid substitutions are needed for efficient engineering of improved protein crystallization.

Described herein is an analysis of crystal-packing interactions in the Protein Data Bank based on a new analytical framework specifically developed to support rational engineering of improved protein crystallization. Also described herein are results demonstrating such approaches based on introduction of more complex sequence epitopes that have already been observed to mediate high-quality packing contacts in crystal structures deposited into the Protein Data Bank (PDB). Many naturally occurring proteins have excellent solubility properties and also crystallize very well. The results described herein show that specific protein surface epitopes can mediate strong interprotein interactions under the special solution conditions that drive protein crystallization without compromising solubility in the dilute aqueous buffers used for protein purification.

Beyond providing a library of previously observed linear crystal-packing epitopes, this analysis provides new insight into the physiochemical properties of protein crystals. Packing interactions typically involve approximately half of all residues on the protein surface, and are extremely polymorphic among proteins with very high homology, even those with nearly identical cell unit cell constants. However, there are indications that some sequences can preferentially mediate high-quality packing interactions. Furthermore, most isolated packing epitopes are small in size and extent, suggesting that they may be feasible targets for engineering efforts.

Example 4 Identification and Analysis of Sequence Epitopes Mediating Interprotein Packing Interactions in the PDB

Described herein is a hierarchical analytical scheme to identify contiguous epitopes potentially useful for protein engineering (FIG. 3). This scheme is used to analyze all interprotein packing interactions in crystal structures in the PDB (FIG. 5). The hierarchical scheme is at the heart of our analysis. As used herein, an interface refers to all residues making atomic contacts (≦4 Å) between two protein molecules related by a single rotation-translation operation in the real-space crystal lattice. The interface is decomposed into features that we call Elementary Binary Interaction Epitopes (EBIEs—top of FIG. 3). These comprise a connected set of residues that are covalently bonded or make van der Waals interactions to one other in one molecule and that also contact a similarly connected set of residues in the other molecule forming the interface. EBIEs are the foundation of the analysis described herein because they represent potentially engineerable sequence motifs. One or more EBIEs that are connected to one another by covalent bonds or van der Waals interactions within a molecule form a Continuous Binary Interaction Epitope (CBIE). One or more CBIEs in one molecule that are connected to one another indirectly by a chain of contacts across a single interface form a Full Binary Interaction Epitope (FBIE). The set of one or more FBIEs that all mediate contacts between the same two molecules in the real-space lattice form a complete interface (bottom of FIG. 3).

The results of applying this analytical scheme to the entire PDB are shown in FIG. 5. On average, approximately half of all surface-exposed residues participate in crystal packing interactions (FIG. 5B). Protein chains form a plurality of interfaces each, with many more non-proper interfaces than proper interfaces formed (FIG. 5C). The set of proper interfaces, which are more likely to be oligomers or biological interfaces, contains many more larger interfaces than nonproper interfaces (FIG. 5D). However, while these data describe the composition of the crystal structures in the PDB as a whole, they do not address complications raised by nonhomogoneities within the population of the PDB. In particular, two issues need to be addressed. First, FIG. 5B-D shows that proper interfaces behave significantly differently from nonproper interfaces, indicating that they should be segregated for analysis. Second, the PDB contains many structures which are partially or completely redundant, which creates small inaccuracies in the characterization of structures in general but much larger problems in the eventual identification of sequence motifs which are overrepresented in crystal packing interactions. As described herein, both of these concerns are addressed by computational flagging and downweighting mechanisms.

The BioMT database, which categorizes all previously described biological interfaces in the PDB, was used to identify biological oligomers. Interfaces so identified were flagged as “BioMT” interfaces. Recognizing that some potential oligomeric interfaces may not be appropriately categorized by BioMT, the set of “proper” interfaces which could be either biological or crystallographic were also identified.

Interfaces were designated as “proper” if they form part of a regular oligomer with proper rotational symmetry (i.e., n protein molecules in the realspace lattice each related to the next by a 360°/n rotation±5°, with n being any integer from 2-12) and “non-proper” if they do not. Proper interfaces could potentially be part of a stable physiological oligomer while non-proper interfaces cannot. After these two categorization steps, four sets of interfaces exist: the set of all interfaces; the set of biological interfaces identified by BioMT; the set of proper interfaces not identified as biological interfaces by BioMT, but which could potentially be either biological or crystallographic; and the set of interfaces which are not identified by BioMT and which are not proper, as defined above. The most conservative approach to isolating non-physiological crystal packing interactions is to focus exclusively on non-proper interfaces in order to exclude any complex that is potentially a physiological oligomer. Nonetheless, epitopes that contribute to stabilizing physiological oligomers may still be useful for engineering purposes, and epitopes that promote formation of a regular oligomer would be particularly useful because stable oligomerization strongly promotes crystallization (Slabinski, Protein Sci 2007, 16 (11), 2472-82).

Even when all biological and oligomeric interfaces have been removed from the dataset, significant redundancy remains within the PDB. Many proteins in the PDB have had multiple crystal structures deposited, which may have very similar if not identical packing interactions (e.g., multiple mutations at a non-interacting active site) but which can also have completely separate packing interactions (e.g., crystallization under different conditions into a different crystal form). Simply culling identical or homologous proteins would remove all redundancy but would also eliminate significant information from the second situation, where the same protein forms crystals with different packing interactions. To implement a redundancy down-weighting, the Packing Similarity Score (PSS) was developed to evaluate the similarity between interprotein interfaces, full chain interactions, and crystals. PSS is calculated in the following way (more details are included in Methods): Interactions matrices are generated for each interface, with rows representing residues in one chain and columns representing residues in the other chain. Cells in the matrix include the number of interatomic contacts between the two residues (including bonds mediated by a single solvent molecule) and the B-factor-derived weight associated with that contact. The PSS between two interfaces is defined as the Frobenius product (essentially a matrix dot-product) of the two sequence-aligned interaction matrices, normalized to a range between 0 and 1. This value contains significant information about the overall similarity of two interfaces, and is sensitive to small changes; it also necessarily encodes the more basic information about the fraction of preserved residues (FIG. 4A). To calculate the PSS for two chains or two crystals, the process is essentially repeated on a larger scale. Each interface in one chain is matched with an interface in the second chain with which it has the highest PSS. Interfaces are ordered in this way, and the individual interaction matrices are then inscribed into the larger chain/chain or crystal/crystal interaction matrix. The Frobenius product of this matrix is then taken. However, since best-matches are not necessarily reciprocal, the best-interface-matching process is repeated in reverse to ensure reciprocality of the chain or crystal PSS. The Frobenius products of the two matrices are added and then normalized to give the chain or crystal PSS.

FIG. 4 shows statistics from application of this analytical scheme to all crystal structures in the PDB (39,208 entries). The average number of total, proper, and non-proper interfaces per protein molecular are 6.9, 1.8, and 5.1, respectively (FIG. 5A). While a minimum of four interfaces are required for a single molecule to form a 3-dimensional lattice, fewer are possible when multiple molecules are present in the crystallographic asymmetric unit. Proteins generally contain only a small number of interfaces beyond the minimum required for lattice formation, indicating that most interfaces contribute to structural stabilization of the lattice. On average, 50% of surface-exposed residues and 36% of all residues participate in interprotein packing interactions (FIG. 5B). While interfaces range widely in size, 36% of all interfaces and 42% of non-proper interfaces contain 10 or fewer residues counting contributions from both sides of the interface (˜5 from each participating molecule) (FIG. 5C). The small size of the average interface is encouraging relative to the feasibility of engineering interface formation. Half of all interfaces are under eight residues in size, and a quarter (8678 total) are under eight residues in range within the polypeptide chain (separation). The cumulative size/range distributions for all interfaces, CBIEs, and EBIEs (FIG. 5D) shows that most interfaces are topologically simple and local in the primary sequence, even though some are complex. It is noteworthy that FBIE's contain on average fewer than two EBIEs (not shown) and that most EBIEs are less than 4 residues in size and 10 residues in range. These small EBIEs represent prime candidates for engineering improved crystallization of crystallization-resistant proteins.

Quantifying similarity in the crystal-packing interactions of homologous proteins demonstrates pervasive polymorphism in interprotein interfaces. A general method was developed to quantify the similarity between different interprotein packing interfaces formed by homologous proteins. Its foundation is a B-factor-weighted count (C_(ij)) of inter-atomic contacts between residues i and j across the interface:

$C_{ij} = {\sum\limits_{{atom}.{pairs}}\; \left( \frac{{\langle B\rangle}_{2 - {10\%}}}{\sqrt{B_{m}B_{n}}} \right)^{n}}$

The terms B_(m) and B_(n) are the atomic B-factors of the contacting atoms in residues i and j, respectively (i.e., atoms with centers separated by less than 4 Å), while <B>₂₋₁₀% represents an estimate of the B-factor of the most ordered atoms in the structure (which is calculated as the average B-factor of atoms in the 2nd through 10^(th) percentiles). An upper bound of 1.0 is imposed on the B-factor ratio (i.e., it is set to 1.0 whenever (B_(m)B_(n))^(1/2)<<B>₂₋₁₀%). The exponent n is an adjustable parameter in our software that allows analyses to be performed either without (n=0) or with (n≧1) down-weighting of contacts between atoms with high B-factors. Such atoms, which have enhanced disorder, may contribute less to interface stabilization, but prior literature on this topic is lacking. Therefore, we developed an analytical approach facilitating exploration of B-factor effects. Specifically, using higher values of n in our scoring function progressively down-weights high B-factor contacts.

Each interface in a crystal structure (as defined above) is quantitatively described by a contact matrix C containing the corresponding C_(u) values (i.e., with its rows and columns indexed by the residue numbers in the two interaction proteins). To evaluate the similarity in interprotein interfaces formed by homologous proteins, their sequences are aligned using the program CLUSTAL-W (Mateja, Acta crystallographica 2002, 58 (Pt 12), 1983-91) (after transitively grouping together all proteins sharing at least 60% sequence identity). This procedure effectively aligns both the columns and rows in the contact matrices for interfaces formed by the homologous proteins. The Packing Similarity Score (PSS) between the interfaces is then calculated as the Frobenius (matrix-direct) product between the respective contact matrices. This procedure is mathematically equivalent to calculating a dot-product between vectors filled with the contact count between residue pairs in the interfaces. PSSs value ranges from 1.0, if the number of contacts between each interfacial residue pair is identical, to 0.0, if no pairwise contacts are preserved.

This metric was used to analyze a dataset comprising all pairs of crystal structures in the PDB containing proteins with ≧98% sequence identity (FIG. 4C). This dataset includes a heterogeneous mixture of mutant/ligand-bound structures in the same spacegroup as well as alternative crystal forms of the same protein. While many interfaces are approximately conserved, it is rare for identical packing interactions to be observed in different crystal structures of nearly identical proteins. While 35% of interfaces show PSSs of 0.80-0.95, another 30% have PSSs from 0.40-0.80. Therefore, there is almost invariably some degree of plasticity in interfacial packing contacts and frequently substantial polymorphism. Importantly, the residues involved in crystal-packing interactions tend to be conserved (˜50% over random expectation) even when pairwise interactions in the interface are not conserved. This observation indicates that some surface residues have inherently high crystallization-packing potential, so introducing corresponding epitopes into a protein is likely to increase its crystallization propensity even if the complementary epitope is not present.

The observation that some interfacial contacts are preserved, while other are not, leads to a series of important conceptual and practical conclusions. Most importantly, conservation of packing similarity provides experimental data on the strength of the different packing contacts within an interface, because energetically more stable contacts are less likely to be perturbed to satisfy differences in the physiochemical environment in different crystals. The results and molecular-mechanics calculations described herein show that the more preserved packing contacts have higher thermodynamic stability than the less preserved contacts. These contacts with higher stability are likely to play an important role in specifying and stabilizing the crystal lattice, and are therefore prioritized for evaluation in epitope-engineering experiments. Some residues contribute more than others to stabilization of crystal packing-interactions in thermodynamic dissection of interprotein interfaces in stable complexes (Jaroszewski, Structure 2008, 16 (11), 1659-67). Residues making packing contacts with lower stability nonetheless need to be immobilized upon interface formation, which will incur a substantial entropic penalty that could be larger than their favorable contribution to the formation of crystal interfaces. In this context, it is not surprising that crystallization is thermodynamically finicky and very sensitive to the mean entropy of surface-exposed side chains (Derewenda, Acta crystallographica 2006, 62 (Pt 1), 116-24).

Mutation of surface-exposed residues is likely to induce changes in crystal packing whether they participate in either high-stability or low stability contacts. This effect, combined with the fact that 60% of the surface-exposed residues in the average protein make interfacial contacts (FIG. 5A), rationalizes the fact that surface mutations very frequently change crystallization behavior and that proteins with less than 90% sequence identity only form similar non-proper packing interfaces very infrequently (FIG. 5C). However, engineering improved crystallization behavior requires introduction of epitopes with a propensity to form high-stability crystal-packing contacts.

Creation of a library of all linear sequence epitopes mediating crystal-packing interactions in the PDB and to develop metrics to score their packing potential. We have created a database containing a library of all EBIEs, CBIEs, and FBIEs in the PDB that span at most two successive regular secondary structural elements and flanking loops (as identified by the DSSP algorithm (Wukovitz, Nat Struct Biol. 1995, 2 (12), 1062-7)). The sequence of both contacting and non-contacting residues is stored along with the standard DSSP-encoding of the secondary structure at each position in the protein structure in which the epitope was observed to mediate a crystal packing interaction. All metrics possibly related to the crystal-packing potential of the epitope are recorded, including B-factor distribution parameters, statistical enrichment scores relative to all interfaces in the PDB as well as conservation in multiple crystals from homologous proteins, and crystallization propensity and solubility scores based on the sequence composition of the epitope. The database includes the identity of all EBIE pairs making contact with each other as well as a breakdown of the composition of all FBIEs and CBIEs in terms of their constituent EBIES.

Computational analyses of crystal-packing interactions in the PDB to identify short epitopes with statistically enhanced occurrence in crystal-packing interfaces. This library is used to count all EBIEs which appear in the PDB, and to determine which sequences are statistically overrepresented in EBIE's given their background frequency in non-interacting sequences in the PDB.

Prior to considering specific amino acid sequences, the secondary structure patterns which appeared most frequently in EBIEs were examined. Some secondary structure patterns appeared much more frequently than others; these are summarized in Table 2.

Example 6 Epitope-Engineering Experiment

The methods described herein were used to select putative crystallization-enhancing epitopes for six target proteins that yielded unsolvable crystals and another three that never yielded crystals of any kind with their native sequences (FIG. 9 & FIG. 10). After making an average of three epitope mutations per protein, crystal structures were obtained for five of the six proteins that yielded unsolvable crystals with their native sequences (FIG. 9). Furthermore, crystals for two of the four proteins that failed to yield any crystals with their native sequences were also obtained. Both 1.9 Å and 1.8 Å diffraction was obtained for these two proteins respectively, and both datasets led to solved crystal structures (FIGS. 15-16). All of the amino-acid substitutions that produced crystal structures involved substitution of a residue with higher sidechain entropy than the residue it replaced in the native sequence. In three cases, the successful mutation involved introduction of lys or glu residues, exactly the residues that are removed in classic surface-entropy reduction. Therefore, while engineering low surface entropy is one consideration underlying the methods described herein, the design strategy focusing on tertiary epitopes leads to fundamentally different kinds of amino acid substitutions than used in previous surface-entropy reduction methods involving substitution of individual amino acids with low sidechain entropy, which are generally more hydrophobic and impair protein solubility. In contrast, in the results described herein, 39 of 41 mutant proteins (95%) were sufficiently stable and soluble to undergo high-throughput crystallization screening (FIGS. 10 A and B). Only two of these were significantly destabilized compared to the native sequence based on Thermofluor analyses (FIG. 10C). The vast majority produced a significant increase in the number of crystallization hits in systematic high-throughput screening (FIG. 10D). One crystal structure was obtained from a mutant that reduced the total number of hits but produced hits under alternative chemical conditions. This property was shared by 28 of 32 screened mutant proteins, i.e., they yielded at least some and typically many “hits” under alternative conditions than the WT protein (FIG. 10E). Two of the five crystal structures generated from mutant proteins show the mutated residue making a direct contact in a packing interface (e.g., FIG. 10F), although with somewhat different stereochemistry from the template used for engineering. The third structure shows the mutant residue contacting an adjacent residue that makes a crystal packing contact. However, the fourth structure shows the mutant residue in a region of weak electron density, while the fifth shows it to be relatively remote from any packing interface.

An advantage of the methods described herein is its very high yield of soluble protein variants, which enable the search for chemical conditions mediating stable lattice formation to be conducted with proteins with a greater diversity of surface properties that are generally favorable for crystallization. This new crystallization-screening “variable”, which can be explored efficiently with the methods describes herein, enables more effective exploitation of the thermodynamic forces promoting crystallization during extensive chemical screening.

Example 7 Epitope Sub-Distributions

B-factor distributions in sub-epitopes can also be evaluated as a function of overrepresentation ratio, structure resolution, residue type, epitope size, buried surface area, and proportional contribution to an interface in connection with the methods described herein. Such analysis can be used to design of ranking metrics using sub-epitope B-factor distributions.

Analyses of topological, energetic, and primary sequence differences between non-BIOMT/non-proper crystal packing interactions and BIOMT interfaces mediating stable protein oligomerization, can also be used in connection with the methods described herein. Such analyses can be used to determine whether ranking metrics excluding BIOMT interfaces improve outcome.

Several reference databases can be generated in addition to the 1-to-6-mer sub-epitope database described herein (EEDb1). One such reference database can be used to restrict overrepresentation calculations and engineering suggestions to sub-epitopes with surface-exposed residues at all contacting positions (EEDb2). Other reference databases can be used to restrict consideration to complete EBIEs rather than including sub-epitopes (EEDb3). Yet another reference database could be limited to single amino acids in a specific secondary structure as presented in FIG. 18.

The epitope-engineering methods described herein can be adapted for alpha-helical integral membrane proteins (IMPs). This adaptation can be performed by adding a second mask to the specification of each epitope indicating whether it resides in a transmembrane alpha-helix. The epitope distributions observed in the crystal structures of alpha-helical IMPs can be compared to those in the full PDB and the distribution of packing contacts relative to the centroids and the termini of the transmembrane α-helices can be analyzed. The observed patterns can be used to customize epitope-engineering suggestions for α-helical IMPs.

Example 8 Introduction of Salt Bridges Improve Crystallization

One of the most overrepresented dimeric crystallization sub-epitopes in the PDB comprises a glu-arg salt-bridge on the surface of an α-helix (ExxxR (SEQ ID NO: 50)/HHHHH in Table 37). Introduction of this sub-epitope into predicted alpha-helices in crystallization-resistant proteins can improve their crystallization sufficiently to yield a structure.

Four NESG proteins that have given crystals with at best poor diffraction (4-8 Å limiting resolution at the synchrotron) and another four that have never given a crystallization hit were selected for analysis. These eight proteins were mutated to introduce new glu-arg salt-bridges at 4 different sites in predicted alpha-helices. The mutant proteins were expressed and analyzed for their solubility, stability, and hydrodynamic homogeneity and subjected to crystallization screening and optimization using the standard NESG platform. All related experimental data were systematically evaluated to determine whether any of the sequence parameters and computational metrics correlated with outcome at every stage of the pipeline (i.e., expression, solubility, stability, and crystal-structure solution.)

Example 9 Introduction of Other Epitopes Improve Crystallization

Similarly designed studies will be conducted on four other highly overrepresented dimeric sub-epitopes shown in Table 37. Another study will focus on introducing 20 different candidate sub-epitopes into each of two poorly crystallizing proteins to evaluate correlations between protein expression/crystallization outcome and all computed ranking metrics. Another study will take a similar approach to determining whether efficacy is improved by limiting engineering to complete EBIEs rather than using sub-epitopes. Based on the results obtained from these initial studies, additional studies will be designed to further explore the efficacy of alternative crystallization-epitope-engineering strategies.

Example 10 Effects of Epitope Engineered Single and Poly Mutant Proteins on Protein Solubility

The introduction of crystallization-inducing epitopes can also have effects on other protein characteristics, such as solubility. To compare the solubility of the wildtype protein VCR193 to its epitope mutants, each VCR193 construct was subjected to a precipitant solution of ammonium sulfate at varying concentrations, and after a period of incubation, soluble protein levels tested with a NanoDrop 200 UV-Vis Spectrophotometer.

All protein stock concentrations were determined using the NanoDrop 2000 at A280. A stock solution of precipitant (3M NH4SO4) was prepared in Experimental buffer (50 mM sodium acetate, pH 4.25). Using these stock concentration values, mixtures of varying protein and precipitant concentrations were prepared in 1.5 mL Eppendorf tubes at room temperature. For each construct, final protein concentrations of 1, 2 and 4 mg/mL were mixed with final precipitant concentrations of 0.8, 1.0, 1.2 and 1.4M NH4SO4. Experimental buffer was used to bring each aliquot to a final volume of 50 uL. For all samples, components were introduced in the order of precipitant, buffer, and protein. All samples were performed in duplicate. Once all mixtures were prepared, samples were incubated at room temperature for 5 minutes, then transferred to a benchtop microcentrifuge. Samples were spun for 2 minutes at 13.4K RPM to pellet any precipitation. Sample supernatants were then tested for remaining soluble protein with the NanoDrop 2000.

Results show that for the 4 single mutants designed for VCR193, only one (VCR193_F241R) had a detrimental effect on protein solubility (FIG. 12) Notably, the mutation reducing solubility was the only one among the set tested to significantly destabilize the protein thermodynamically. All other mutants maintained, or showed a slight increase (VCR193_V122R) in protein solubility.

Similar results were seen for the poly-mutant samples (FIG. 13). Protein solubility was not affected, except in the one poly mutant that contained the VCR193_F241R mutation which had previously shown a decrease in solubility.

Example 11 Combining Multiple Epitope Mutations can Produce Additional Large Gains in Crystallization Propensity Over the Individual Constituent Mutations

Purified proteins were set up in a standard robotic microbatch crystallization screen. The screen covered 1536 different chemical conditions. Observations were reported after one week of incubation at 4° C., based on robotic imaging of the reactions and manual evaluation of the resulting optical micrographs. The results in FIG. 14 demonstrate that the epitope mutations in this protein generally increase the number of crystallization hits and always yield hits under different crystallization conditions than the WT protein. Combining multiple epitope mutations increases further the number of hits obtained, indicating that this “multimutant” crystallizes more avidly than the individual epitope mutant.

Example 12 Epitope-Engineering Study on “No Hits” Proteins

Proteins were selected with Pxs≧0.25, monodisperse stocks, and clean Thermofluor melts. Four proteins that showed no evidence of crystallization with their native sequences in the 1536 well screen were re-purified and put through the 1536 well screen a second time, to verify their failure to crystallize prior to the generation of mutants. Four or five epitope mutations, primarily introducing salt-bridges, were then introduced into each protein, and the resulting mutant variants were purified and analyzed, yielding results summarized in FIG. 15. Of the 18 mutations for which data are presented, 16 essentially preserved the stability and solubility of the protein. Single epitope mutations yielded very high quality crystal structures for two of the four proteins in the study. The results show that epitope mutations producing crystal structures are located in packing contacts. The mutated residues make direct or water-mediated hydrogen-bonds in one of the crystal-packing interfaces in these structures, as shown for protein LpYceA (LgR82) in FIG. 16 on the right. Any failures were either large (>400 aa) or yielded aggregation-prone proteins upon mutation. Additional epitope mutations can be introduced into stable di- and tri-mutants of failures.

Example 13 Overrepresentation of Individual Amino Acids in Specific Secondary Structures in Packing Interfaces in the PDB

After normalization for the abundance of the amino acids on protein surfaces in the PDB (“surface-shaping”), the number of amino acids in each secondary-structure class making crystal-packing interactions was counted and compared to random expectation. FIG. 18 shows the over-representation ratios calculated in this manner for the 60 classes (20 amino acids in three possible secondary structures—H, E, and L for helix, strand, and “loop”, respectively). FIG. 19 presents the same values plotted against the solvent-accessible surface area of the sidechain of each amino acid, which shows that amino acids with comparable surface area have significantly different propensity to mediate crystal-packing interactions. Notably, many of the most strongly overrepresented residues in crystal-packing interfaces have a negative influence (e.g., gln, glu, or lys in helices) or a neutral influence (arg in helices) on crystallization propensity when overall amino-acid-frequency on the protein surface is analyzed. Therefore, the data presented in these slides demonstrate that the structural context of individual amino acids has a critical effect on their propensity to mediate crystal-packing interactions. These results demonstrate that the epitope library described herein is successful in identifying the proper context, as evidenced by the data obtained in experiments introducing these epitopes into crystallization-resistant proteins. This context frequently involves high-entropy polar side chains being constrained by local entropy-reducing structural interactions. Notably, the amino acids substitutions that have been most successful in yielding crystal structures in these experiments (i.e., glu and arg in helices) are among the most strongly overrepresented in crystal-packing interfaces once secondary structure is taken into account, as shown in FIG. 18. Therefore, one reason that our methods are successful in improving protein crystallization is that they guide insertion at productive locations of amino acids that have a high propensity to mediate crystal-packing interactions when present in the right structural context.

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APPENDIX A

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Lengthy table referenced here US20130123467A1-20130516-T00031 Please refer to the end of the specification for access instructions.

Lengthy table referenced here US20130123467A1-20130516-T00032 Please refer to the end of the specification for access instructions.

Lengthy table referenced here US20130123467A1-20130516-T00033 Please refer to the end of the specification for access instructions.

LENGTHY TABLES The patent application contains a lengthy table section. A copy of the table is available in electronic form from the USPTO web site (http://seqdata.uspto.gov/?pageRequest=docDetail&DocID=US20130123467A1). An electronic copy of the table will also be available from the USPTO upon request and payment of the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.19(b)(3). 

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of modifying a protein sequence for high-resolution X-ray crystallographic structure determination, the method comprising: (a) receiving a sequence of a protein of interest; (b) selecting, using a computer, an epitope from an epitope or sub-epitope library that is expected to increase the propensity of the protein of interest to crystallize; and (c) outputting information on which portion of the amino acid sequence of the protein of interest should be replaced with the selected epitope or sub-epitope to generate a modified protein.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the information is outputted in the form of an amino acid sequence of the modified protein or a portion thereof.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the information is outputted in the form of a list of mutations to be made in the amino acid sequence of the protein of interest to provide the amino acid sequence of the modified protein or a portion thereof.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the epitope library includes information describing over-representation of an epitope in the PDB database.
 5. The method of claim 1, further comprising predicting the secondary structure of the protein of interest.
 6. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying a homolog of the protein of interest and aligning the sequence of the protein of interest with the sequence of the homolog.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the epitope is selected based on one or more of: over-representation P-value for overrepresentation of the epitope in the epitope library; fraction of occurrences of the epitope in the PDB database in crystal-packing contacts; frequency of occurrence of the epitope in crystal-packing interfaces in the PDB database; sequence diversity of proteins containing the epitope in crystal-packing interfaces in the PDB database; sequence diversity of partner epitopes in the PDB database; low frequency of non-water bridging ligands to the epitope in the PDB database; lack of increase in hydrophobicity of the modified protein by introducing the epitope; or predicted influence of the epitope on the solubility of the modified protein.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein the selected epitope or sub-epitope is 1-6 amino acid in length.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein the epitope or sub-epitope includes a polar amino acid.
 10. The method of claim 1, wherein the selected epitope or sub-epitope is an epitope from Tables 5-38.
 11. The method of claim 1, wherein the selected epitope or sub-epitope is an epitope from Table
 36. 12. The method of claim 1, wherein the selected epitope or sub-epitope is an epitope from Table
 37. 13. The method of claim 1, wherein the epitope or sub-epitope can form a salt bridge in the protein of interest.
 14. The method of claim 1, wherein the selected sub-epitope is an single amino acid sub-epitope taken from those with the strongest overprepresentation ratio in FIG.
 19. 15. The method of claim 15 wherein the sub-epitope is selected from the group comprising: an alpha helix glutamic acid, an alpha helix glutamine, an alpha helix arginine, or an alpha helix tryptophan.
 16. The method of any of claims 1-14, wherein two or more steps are performed using a computer.
 17. The method of any of claims 1-14, wherein the method is implemented by a web-based server.
 18. The method of any of claims 1-14, further comprising generating a nucleic acid sequence encoding a protein comprising the modified protein.
 19. The method of claim 1, further comprising expressing the modified protein in a cell or in an in vitro expression system.
 20. The method of claim 1, further comprising crystallizing the modified protein of interest.
 21. A system for designing a modified protein for high-resolution X-ray crystallographic structure determination, the system comprising a computer having a processor and computer-readable program code for performing the method of claim
 1. 22. A method of using the system of claim 21 to obtain the amino acid sequence of the modified protein.
 23. The method of claim 21, further comprising generating a nucleic acid sequence encoding a protein comprising the modified protein.
 24. The method of claim 21, further comprising expressing the modified protein in a cell or in an in vitro expression system.
 25. The method of claim 21, further comprising crystallizing the modified protein.
 26. A computer readable medium containing a database of a plurality of epitopes from Tables 5-38.
 27. A computer readable medium containing information describing over-representation of a plurality of epitopes in the PDB database.
 28. The computer readable medium of any of claim 26-27 which is non-transitory.
 29. A recombinant protein in which a portion of its amino acid sequence has been replaced by an epitope from Tables 5-38.
 30. A crystal of the protein according to claim
 29. 31. The crystal of claim 30, which is suitable for high-resolution X-ray crystallographic studies. 